JOTTINGS
INFANT MORTALITY RATE IN N. Y.
The January Bulletin of the Department of Health in New York city shows that the downward curve of the death rate during 1910 and 1911 was continued in 1912 and that the lowest point ever recorded in the city has been reached. In 1911 the death rate was 15.13 for 1,000, while in 1912 it was 14.11. The difference of 1.02 between the two years means that 5,276 lives were saved in 1912, for, if the rate of 1911 had prevailed last year, New York’s death roll would have been larger by just that number. In analyzing the returns it is found that the decrease has affected those diseases which the Department of Health seeks to control; namely, the acute infectious diseases, tuberculosis of the lungs, and the diarrhoea of children. On the other hand, there is a decided increase in the mortality from those diseases which seem to be peculiar to our modern society and which are not under public health control, organic heart disease and Bright’s disease.
The infant mortality rate is low. Calculated on the basis of reported births the deaths of children under one year number only 105 per thousand born, and in all probability this is a little too high, for New York city does not claim to have more than from 90 to 95 per cent birth registration. The record is encouraging when compared with the figures for Great Britain and Germany. The rate for England and Wales in 1911 was 130; that for Berlin in 1910 was 157.
HEALTH OF LONDON SCHOOL CHILDREN
Only in the last few years has the law required every child attending an elementary school to be physically examined on entering and leaving and, therefore, statistics on the health of school children in England are only now available. About a million and a half children are now examined annually. The report of Sir George Newman, chief medical officer of the Board of Education for 1911, has just been issued. It shows the condition of 186,652 children in thirteen counties and sixteen urban areas and is far from satisfactory. Only in one urban area did the percentage of “good” nutrition reach 45, and from this figure it ranged down as low as 3.8. Of 200,000 children examined in London more than half were found to be defective and over 78,000 were recommended for treatment. According to this report the malnutrition is due in the great majority of cases to ignorance of the relative value of foodstuffs and the means of using them economically, and only in the minority to poverty. About .5 per cent of the children are feeble-minded and of these about one-seventh are of such low grade as to be uneducable.
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON SCHOOL HYGIENE
The preliminary bulletin of the Fourth International Congress for School Hygiene announces a meeting, which is to be held in Buffalo, N. Y., August 23 to 30 next. The three preceding congresses were held in 1904 in Nuremberg; in 1907 in London, and in 1910 in Paris. The president of the congress is Charles W. Eliot, president emeritus of Harvard University; the vice-presidents are: Dr. W. H, Welch, professor of pathology at Johns Hopkins University and Dr. Henry P. Walcott, chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Health. The lists of vice-presidents and members of the international committee includes the names of some of the foremost men of science in Europe and Asia. Buffalo has raised $40,000 to meet the expenses of the Congress and to entertain the delegates.
3 TO 1 FOR TUBERCULOSIS HOSPITAL
That the people are coming to favor taxing themselves for public measures to control tuberculosis is indicated by a referendum vote on the establishment of a county tuberculosis hospital in eight towns of St. Lawrence county, New York. The public health committee of the board of supervisors failed to draw up a question to be voted upon in all the towns of the county as instructed by the board. But eight town supervisors took an informal vote on the question. The question carried in all eight towns. The ballots stood more than three to one in the affirmative. This is the first time that this question has been submitted to a vote of the people in New York state. Three of the towns are distinctly rural and only one of the eight communities is a city.