UNSANITARY HOUSING 



39 



The death rate varies at different ages, being more marked in city 

 children under the age of five years. Mere density alone on a given 

 square space is insufficient to produce all the results which are found. 

 The density of houses is a vital factor to take into account. The 

 house itself, its site, its relationship to other houses, and the char- 

 acter of its inmates must all be considered. Density upon a unit 

 area cannot be ignored; but it is the cubical contents with which we 

 must wrestle to ascertain the effect of overcrowding on death and 

 sickness rates. Dr. Newman gives an interesting table of death 

 rates in houses or tenements of small sizes. In one-room tenements, 

 the death rate from all causes in 1904 was found to be 40.6 per 

 1,000; in two-room tenements, 21.9; in three-room tenements, 14.7; 

 while in tenements of four rooms and upwards it was 7.5; for the 

 whole municipality it was 21.1.* Perhaps the effect of these un- 

 sanitary housing conditions are better shown in the table of Infant 

 Mortality for the same municipality (Finsbury). This table shows 

 a higher fatality among infants living in one-roomed houses than 

 those living in two, three or four-roomed houses. 



INFANT MORTALITY RATES FROM ALL AND CERTAIN CAUSES IN HOUSES 



OR TENEMENTS OF SEVERAL SIZES, METROPOLITAN BOROUGH 



OF FINSBURY, 1905. 



* Infant Mortality, G. Newman. 



