On the Influence of Temperature on Infant Mortality. By Dr. DECE. 
(With Illustrations.) 
[Read before the Otago Institute, 19th November, 1872.] 
ALTHOUGH I feel that the subject upon which I have to offer a few remarks is 
one especially suited to the meetings of a medical society ; yet, in the absence 
of such in this place I have thought it might prove of some interest to the 
members of this Institute. I was led to collect the few data upon which my 
remarks are founded on hearing of the extreme heat of the weather during the 
past summer in England and in North America, and the consequent great 
increase in infantile mortality with which that hot weather was accompanied. 
This mortality is thus referred to in the “ Lancet ” for August, 1872 :— 
“The effect of the great heat which we have had of late is manifest in the 
death returns by a large increase in the mortality from diarrhea. In London 
the general mortality has risen from 17 to 26 per 1,000 in the last five weeks, 
the rate last week, 26 per 1,000, being higher than in any previous week this 
year, a result almost exclusively due to the fatality of diarrheea, which caused 
last week 394 deaths. The mortality from this cause was nearly all among 
children under five years of age, of whom 324 died in their first year. In the 
eighteen large towns the deaths registered from diarrhcea in the week ending 
July 6th were 113, during the next fortnight they were successively 226 and 
370, and during the last week 604. In Leicester and Leeds the fatality is 
greater than in London, while in Hull it is equal, but in all the other towns 
considerably less fatal than in London. The Registrar-General refers in this 
connection ‘to the importance of pure water to children who drink freely in 
hot weather,’ and no doubt that is a most important matter, but it must be 
remembered that the mortality is to a large extent among infants who are 
hardly likely to drink freely of water.” 
The mortality among children from the same cause in New York is thus | 
referred to in the “ Lancet” for 10th August, 1872 :— 
« Heat as intolerable as that which beset the ancient mariner and his crew 
continues to afflict New York. Not only have cases of sunstroke reached a 
frightful average, but deaths from nearly every cause still swell abnormally 
the mortality returns; 1,056 deaths, about double the usual number, were 
recorded the week before last, while in Philadelphia they amounted to 885, 
about treble the average. But the infant mortality remains the most appalling 
feature. Cholera infantum, almost endemic in the Empire City, has assumed 
something of the proportions of an Egyptian scourge. The heat, with its 
insanitary sequel, operates disastrously on an infant population, which, owing 
to the premature marriages of its parents, is, as a rule, deficient in stamina 
and staying power. It is quite usual in New York for a beardless lad of 18 
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