DEATHS AND BIRTHS.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17393, 2 March 1922, Page 2

DEATHS AND BIRTHS.

BOTH BATES FALLING. "One commonly hears of the 'good old days,' " said Dr.. Young in his presi-' dential address to the British Medical Association at Wellington on Monday night, "but it is a fallacy to consider the eld days good, for judged by pre-sent-day standards they were both morally and sanitarily bad. In the days of _our grandfathers there were severe epidemics,*and the dath rate was considerably higher than at tho present time; not only so, but the average age of man was lower shan it is a . the prosent day. In England and Wales even of recent years, there has been a considerable reduction of the death rate. The death rate in 1868 was 20.6 per thousand living, whilst in 1917 it Was was jpnly 13.5. New Zealand's death rat#-, he went on to say, averaged 12.24 per thousand in the ten-rear period 1871-1880, whereas in it averaged only 9.98 per thousand; in spite of the fact that in 1918 the death rate was twice as heavy as in the previous year. This was a remarkable reduction. in view of the enormous increase in the population of the towns, often to the estent of over-crowding. The credit could not, however, all l.e given, to improved sanitation. It; was to a considerable extent due to decreased birth rate. The New Zealand birth rate in 1883 was 34 per thousand ; in 1915 only 26 per thousand. The infant mortality had shown a remarkable fall. In 1883 it was 103.89 per thousand births, but in 1915 it was only 50.06, and in 1919 L in dropped to' 45.3, the lowest on record. Dr. Truby King had stated that of 1000 deaths among children in New Zealand, 300 were due to epidemic diseases, and 90 to digestive troubles, end he had produced strong evidence to show that a large proportion of the other diseases was indirectly due to -malnutrition; ronsequently most of—-the deaths -aitsong young children were due to preventable causes. Even though New Zealand had one of the lowest infant death rates in the world, this was a strong indictment against the past health administration of the country. "It was time to make child welfare a special luanch of the Health Department."