EDWARD BUNNELL PHELPS, M. A., F. s. s. 173 



As a matter of fact, there was a decrease of more than 6,000 

 in the number of infant deaths, instead of the presumable in- 

 crease of more than 12,000, and that figure would seem to sig- 

 nify an actual decline of nearly 23 per cent, in the infant death 

 rate of 1905 for the Registration Area as compared with that 

 for the Census year, 1900, as shown by the Twelfth Census. 

 Of course comparisons of single years' mortality are open to 

 many serious objections, but as the number of infant deaths in the 

 Registration Area in 1905 was higher by several thousands than 

 that of any of the years intervening between 1900 and 1905, the 

 decrease in the actual number of deaths under age 1, in the 

 face of a steadily increasing population and corresponding in- 

 crease in the number of births, would seem conclusively to indi- 

 cate at least a slight decrease in the infant death rate. The 

 unquestionable decrease in the general death rate, from 1,755.0 

 per 100,000 in 1900 to 1,501.8 in 1909 in the Registration Area, 

 the similar decrease in the general death rates of foreign coun- 

 tries, the comparatively slight but almost invariable decline in 

 the infant death rate in recent years in those States and foreign 

 countries having reasonably complete registration systems, and 

 all collateral evidence combine to suggest a small decrease in 

 infant mortality throughout the United States in the last decade. 

 But positive evidence of that presumable decrease will not be 

 forthcoming until the infant mortality statistics of the Thir- 

 teenth Census are available. In any event, it is extremely im- 

 probable that the infant death rate for the Registration Area, 

 which was 149.4 per 1,000 living births in the Census year 1900, 

 will prove to have dropped below 130 per 1,000 in 1910. 



A study of the figures presented in Table II will reveal many 

 incidental evidences of a decrease in the infant mortality rate, 

 even though the ratio of deaths under 1 to total deaths at all 

 ages was slightly larger for the Registration Area as a whole 

 in the last five years than in the previous quinquennial period. 

 For instance, in 1900-1905, while the Registration Area re- 

 mained unchanged, the fluctuating changes in the ratio in ques- 

 tion tended toward a decrease, the ratio in 1905 being only 19.3 

 as compared with 20.7 in 1900. In 1906 came the addition of 

 five States to the Registration Area, and as these States included 

 many large cities with comparatively high infant mortality rates 

 the immediate increase in 1906 of the ratio of infant deaths to 

 total deaths, from 19.3 to 20.2, might naturally have been ex- 

 pected, and by no means necessarily indicated any actual increase 

 in the infant death rate. Since 1906 the Registration Area's 

 ratio of infant deaths to total deaths has shown a downward 

 tendency, and although in none of the last three years has it 

 reached quite as low a figue as it had in 1901, 1903 and 1904, 



