362 REPORT — 1903. 



As regards age at death we have the following 



While 28-5 per cent, of these deaths were of children whose mothers' 

 occupations were away from home, only 21 '4 per cent, of the married 

 women or widows of Batley were (according to the Census of 1901) so 

 occupied. 



These figures are, of course, quite insufficient to support any conclu- 

 sions by themselves, but suggest a useful and simple method of inquiry. 



The general tables of occupations of married women in towns and of 

 infantile mortality do not appear to suggest any close relationship Ijetween 

 the two, and the great difference in sanitation and customs between town 

 and town would lead us to expect this result. But Dr. G. Reid (M.O.H. 

 Staffordshire County Council) has continued his reseai'ches on this subject, 

 and kindly placed his results at the disposal of the Committee. He hnds 

 that in Staffordshire there are two groups of towns which were from the 

 sanitary point of view similar in most respects, but that in the northern 

 group (where many women were engaged in pottery) the rate of infant 

 jnortality was much higher than in the southern group (where relatively 

 few worhen were occupied away from home). 



Pursuing the idea thus suggested, he compiled the following table : — 



From this he concludes that ' in the absence of any other apparent 

 reason the excessive mortality in the first group compared with the 

 second and third, and in the second compared with the third, is attribu- 

 table to the nature of the trades carried on as affecting the facilities for 

 the employment of women away from home, and as a consequence the 

 proportion of wholly artificially fed to entirely or partially breast-fed 

 infants. While [he is] prepared to admit that the practice of mothers 

 engaging in factory work and continuing at work practically up to the 

 day their children are born may, in itself, prejudicially affect the lives 

 of their children, [lie maintains] that the injury arising from the entire 

 deprivation of mother's mjlk during the eq,rly months of the child's |ifp 

 is far more serious.' 



