14
rate ranged from 7.9 to 30.5, the highest rate being in Liverpool district.
Again, the English Life Table gives the death-rate
in the first year of life at
from 2 to 5 years
„
5 „ 10 „
„ 10 „ 15 „
16.6 per cent.
2.6
„
1.0
„
0.5
Now, judging from my own knowledge of the conditions of life, both in
England and Bombay Presidency, I feel sure that the average infant mortality
here is even higher than in England, notwithstanding the higher rate in
English cities as compared with the country districts. It is true that the
mass of the population here live in country districts and are not subjected to
the noxious evils of crowding; but to counterbalance this advantage there are
many circumstances which must make the infantile death-rate here a very high
one :—they are chiefly, 1st early marriages producing weakly infants ; 2nd, the
people are not as well off as in England; and 3rd, infant life is not so highly
valued as it is in England; and consequently there is not so much care taken
of sickly children—I do not mean this in any reproachful sense, for no one
knows better than I do, how an Indian mother loves her child;and 4th, want
of medical aid—many a sickly child is saved in England by the doctor, who
must die in India for want of, perhaps, a very simple remedy.
The available children may be calculated thus—the total births regis-
tered in 1874 in British territory were 287,670, and the deaths in the first
year of life were 49,945, excluding from both sums still-births. This gives a
rate of 17.3 per cent. of deaths in the first year of life in those born alive, or
very nearly the same as Mr. Randle's diagram of deaths. From the Registrar
General's thirty-second report for the births, deaths and marriages in England
for 1869, I find that in the ten years 1860 to 1869, the deaths in the first year
of life amounted to 15.28 per cent. of those born alive, and as the English
birthrate is 35.1 and our computed rate is 40.96 the infantile death-rate here is
probably at least 17.83. I think it will not be too much to deduct 18 per cent.
from the total of computed births for, say, still-born, deaths, those who escape
the vaccinator, and those who have small-pox before the vaccinator can reach
them ; we have then a remainder of 850,000 in round numbers, which may be
considered available for vaccination annually ; but this sum should be reduced
a little for deaths in the second and higher years of life as we vaccinate at least
up to 6 years old.
In my previous report I calculated that in a population of 24,500,000
we might primarily vaccinate 678,462 yearly, supposing the brith-rate to be
30 per mille ; but by the above method of calculating there should be, in a
population of 25,086,318, somewhere about 850,000 children available for
primary vaccination annually. This is about 170,000 more than were
primarily vaccinated in the year under report. By this calculation there
have been about eight-tenths of the available children vaccinated in the year
1874-75. Considering that vaccination is voluntary, this result must be con-
sidered very satisfactory and highly creditable to the vaccinators, assistant
superintendents, and superintendents. Nothing but the utmost devotion to
their duty could obtain such a result.
Rate per mille of popula-
tion protected.
30. During the past year the primary vaccinations amounted to 26.7
per mille of population ; but if the birth-rate be 40.96
per mille, then we should aim at primarily vaccinat-
ing 33 per mille of population per annum. There
were 25.3 per mille successfully vaccinated. The latter figures show the