[Report 1926] / Medical Officer of Health, Bournemouth County Borough.

  • Bournemouth (England). County Borough Council. nb2004301338.
Date:
1926
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1926] / Medical Officer of Health, Bournemouth County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/74 (page 4)
    MATERNITY ANJ) CHIRD WELFARE. Statistics and information concerning this depart- ment are given later in the report. (a) The Birth Rate foi: the year 1926 was 12.3 per thousand population as compared with 18.2 for the 105 County Boroughs and Great Towns. The lowest rates recorded for Bournemouth in former years were 12.4 in 1917 and again in 1918, and 11.8 in 1919. (b) The Infantile Mortality in Bournemouth has always been very low in comparison with the average for the 105 County Boroughs and Great Towns. This rate is the number of deaths of infants under 12 months per thousand births and in 1926 it was 57.6 as compared with 73 for all large towns. The Infantile Mortality throughout the country has decreased very largely during the past twenty- five years. Many causes have contributed to this result, the influence in this generation of the Ele- mentary Education Act of 1870 ; improved economic conditions; and in more recent years the trained instruction of mothers at the Welfare Centres and in the homes hy IMunicipal Health \isitors, a work that has been ably sup]:)orted by Voluntary Workers who were the pioneers of this education effort in many places. A decrease in birth rate has been coincident with the declining infantile mortality of the past twenty- five years, and there is good reason for deducing a causative relation between these rates. Another and probably a powerful iiitluence that has reduced infantile mortality is tlie improvement in general sanitation throughout tlie country. This influence, to whicl] may be alliil)uted largely the reduction of T^^phoid Fever mortality per 1,000 population in