The Sun FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1914. THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 198, 25 September 1914, Page 6

The Sun FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 1914. THE PUBLIC HEALTH.

|v The report of the Department of Pub- | lie Healthj which was presented to Parliament the, other jday, is well worth ireading, if only for the evidence it afifords that Dr. Truby .has not liv«d jinvvain, ami how the wastage of infant life has been diminished through the spread of more rational ideas regarding the rearing, of babies. There is little need to worry about the decline of the birth-rate, as long as the death-rate down, and from the mortality tables in the report it would appear that New Zealand has become one of the healthiest countries in the world. During the past twenty years there has not been a great deal of vA'ariation in the . birtli-ratei In 1894; it was 27.45, while in 1913 it was 26.14 per 1000 of the population. Meanwhile the infantile nfortality rate —that is, the number of Toabies who die within a year of birth —. has dropped from 81.15 per t@oo births in 1«04, to 59.17 per lOOObirths in 1913.No better evidence could be desired of th«.usefulness of ,tlie work being done by the Plunket : nurses, and of the efforts of the societies which have been disseminating Dr Truby King's ideas up and down the country. .The iufantile mortality in the four chief cities of the Dominion is considerably-higher than in the country districts,, but that is only to be expected. Wellington had the fewest deaths of babies under a year', the rate being GO per 1000 births, as compared with 6.'{ in Christchurch, 73 in Dunedin, and 81 in Auckland. The favourable influence;.of this low mortality amongst infants on the natural increase in the population becomes obvious from a.glsniee at the table in the report showing corresponding figures in other parts of the world. The highest birth-rate in Europe is in Russia, where it is 48.5 per 1000. But the infantile mortality is 232 per 1000. births, or nearly four tinies what it is in New Zealand. Were it not so, the Slavs would sooner or later swamp the rest of Europe. In Germany the birth-rate is 28.6 per 1000 of t)ie population, but the infantile mortality rate is 192 per 1000 births. Nor- • way and Sweden have the lowest infantile mortality rate in Europe. Ireland' conies next, followed by the United Kingdom'and Switzerland, in each of which the infantile itrortality : ,,rate is 105 per 1000 births. The report of the Department shows that the general death-rate has not varied much in the last ten years. Wellington still has the fewest deaths per 1000' of the population of the four chief ventres, but possibly it is because the inhabitants are afraid to die; or'succeedJn escaping to: a pleasanter climate befdre the old man with the scythe" cuts them down. A good deal of the report is takeri tip with the doings of officers of the Health De-• partment in cohnectibn with the smallpox epidemic last year. There is no question that some very fine and selfsacrificing work was performed, ~ particularly amongst the Mabris, and under ; trying and difficult conditions. The medical profession invariably rises to emergencies such as this, but as far as we are aware nobody has' thrown any bouquets at the officers of the Department for the way the epidemic was handled, and finally stamped out.