INFANTILE MORTALITY.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3788, 17 February 1881, Page 2

INFANTILE MORTALITY.

The British Medical Journal says that, owing to the very large existing mortality among infants, the Local Government Board have consented to undertake the general inquiry into the causes which determine the origin and prevalence of summer diarrhoea. In a communication addressed to the Town Council of Leicester —a place pre-eminent among English towns for the terrible infantile mortality that takes place there every summer—-the Board have stated that, having in View the importance of, obtaining, for general use, more information as to the conditions under which diarrhoea is so prevalent and fatal among infants in urban populations, they propose to refer the subject to one of their medical staff as a .'matter of ■general study and local research, with directions to give Leicester a foremost place in his inquiries. It is but fair to assume that the recent decision of the Local Government Board has to no small degree j been influenced by the terrible mortality from diarrhoea which occurred throughout the kingdom in the third quarter of this year. A glance through the BegistrarGeneral's returns shows that the fatality was much mere generalised and intense than usual, although the old haunts of the disease still stand out in conspicuous relief. Hardly a town or urban district of importance escaped, and in some the mortality was simply appalling. The general rate throughout the country was, indeed, higher than in any of the ten preceding summers ; the highest having been S'll in 1870, while that of this year was 332 per IC3O of the population. In the twenty large towns the rate was 44, varying from 24 in Bristol, and 33 in London and Oldham, to B'4 in Salford and 106 in Leicester. In fifty other considerable towns the rate was 4/6, and in;. Ipswich was 82, in Coventry 8/3, in Stockporfc 10.0, and in Preston 136; The BegistrarGeneral's statistics unfortunately do not give, except for London, the ages at which the fatal cases.occuired, but summer diarrhoea is well known to be a disease specially fatal to children, and still more so to infants. The metropolitan figures show that ■ nearly three fourths of the deaths from diarrhoea are those of children under one year of age, and a fifth more are of children between the ages of one and five. These proportions are even exceeded in certain ■ manufacturing districts ; and at the best, they constitute a subject for very serious reflection. As a preliminary step to the commencement of the Government inspector's labours, the Local Government Board have issued a circular letter of inquiry to all places having last quarter exceptional mortality from diarrhoea; asking whether, the inquiries of the local officer of health : have led him rto any judgment as to the conditions which have determined ijthe prevalence or the fatality of the 5 disease in the district.