JOHN S. FULTON, M. D. 121 



for the study of infant mortality. So far it appears that the 

 relation of age is of first importance. This is no discovery. To 

 the end of life, in every category of causes of mortality, age 

 is the first item. But, at the beginning of life, age itself has not 

 been discovered, and the story of infant mortality is a secret of 

 the ages within the age. 



Next one would like to know how age and season combine 

 in the mortality of infancy. That information is to be sought 

 in statements of death according to the month of birth. H. Neu- 

 mann, in a study of the influence of feeding on infant mor- 

 tality (Zeitschrift fur Sociale Medicin, Band 3, 1908) gives two 

 tables of mortality under one year by single months according 

 to the month of birth. These tables account for 41,498 deaths 

 among 1 99, 525 infants born alive in Berlin and Hamburg. 

 Berlin, in the years 1900-1902, furnishes 149,688 infants among 

 whom there were 31,518 deaths, and Hamburg 49,837 live-born 

 among whom there were 9,980 deaths under one year. From 

 the Berlin table I have figured the ratio of each month's mor- 

 tality to the total mortality for the class, and the results are 

 seen in the following chart. In examining the chart one must 

 bear in mind that the first month in each series shows less than 

 a true mortality for infants in their first month. This happens 

 because the present charts represent flowing time, while the pre- 

 ceding charts represent time arrested at measured intervals. 

 At the beginning of each series (in January, for instance), we 

 start without either a population or a mortality. The whole 

 month is spent in acquiring the population whose mortality we 

 are considering. At the beginning of the second month we 

 have completed our population, having age distribution all the 

 way from one day to 31 days old ; and so, on the last day of the 

 twelfth month, our population will have from 1 to 31 days 

 ahead till the end of their first year. The elements of the curves 

 are different from what they would be if we started each curve, 

 as a mathematician would, with 12,000 simultaneous babies. 

 These curves show that age relations are strongly affected by 

 the seasons. The most striking feature of the chart is the 

 August crest as it appears in the first seven curves. In the 

 remaining five, one finds August recovering a little of its sinis- 

 ter eminence with each succeeding group of babies. 



In the belief that a fairer view of the first month of life 

 could be obtained by including still births, I applied Pearson's 1 

 formula for antenatal mortality to the whole series of births 

 reported by Neumann for the city of Berlin. Pearson's figures 

 are for the thirds of pregnancy; 391 deaths in the first three 

 months, 131 deaths in the second three months, and 83 in the 



J The Chances of Death ; Karl Peal-son ; London, 1897. 



