INFANTINE MORTALITY.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43082, 16 April 1907, Page 4

INFANTINE MORTALITY.

Et is alarming to note that of the 210 deaths recorded in the Dunedin dasbrilct for the quarter just ended, 49 svere those .of children under one year off-age. The proportion is so high ns to cause at heavy mortality among infants. By far the greatest number of bher deaths were caused by what are now- called zymotic, diseases.: .The term is drived from a Greek word meaning leaven, and until the advent of bacteriology it was applied to diseases that seemed to be occasioned by a virus or poison, which bred in the body, was diffused through the frame, apd operated upon it like leaven. So Ear as observation -goes, 35 of the in'fants who died last quarter suffered from such diseases. Zymotic diseases are susceptible to mitigation by attention to . the laws -of sanitation and of diet, whichl is only (another way of saying that “zymotic” and “preventable” are almost equivalent teams. According to the statistical returns, of every 1000 children under one year of age in . the Colony 77.22 died in 1905. The average death rate of the whole population of the colony in that year was 9.27 per 1000.