HIGH LEVEL OF HEALTH

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 259, 23 January 1928, Page 1

HIGH LEVEL OF HEALTH

ENGLAND AND WALES SAVING OF INFANT LIFE British Wireless—Press Assn.—Copyright RUGBY, Friday. Evidence of the high level at which the health of England and Wales has been maintained during the past year is provided in the vital statistics published to-day by the Registrar-General. The general death rate was 12.3 a 1,000, which is slightly above the 1926 record, owing mainly to the epidemic of influenza early in the year, but the infant mortality rate was the lowest ever recorded. The remarkable decline of the infant death rate since the beginning of the century Is one of the most satisfactory features of the tables published. During the first four years of the present century the deaths among infants under one year fell from 154 to 132 a 1,000 births. The decline has continued. Last year it stood at 69 infant deaths a 1,000 births. This saving of infant life within 25 years is generally regarded as a most remarkable instance of progress in national hygiene. The reduction in the infant death rate has kept pace more or less with the fall in the birth rate, which, at 16.7 a 1,000 in 1927, was the lowest ever recorded.—a’ and N.Z.