695 
sunk to 131, of which diarrheal diseases constituted a proportion of 
only 37 to a thousand, a decrease of 1,100 per cent. 
In England the report of the registrar-general’s office, compiled 
from the weekly returns of births and deaths from 76 of the largest 
cities of England and Wales in July, August, and September, 1906, 
shows that the total births for these months were 110,209, the total 
deaths under 1 year 23,058, of which no less than 14,306, or over 
50 per cent, were due to diarrhea. 
It is manifest from the foregoing that gastro-intestinal disease, 
causing as it does one-third to one-half of all infant deaths under 1 
year of age, is the largest single factor determining infant mortality. 
Further investigation demonstrates the significant fact that 75 to 85 
per cent of all infants who die of diarrhea are artifically fed. Thus 
Planchon, in investigating the relation feeding methods had to gas- 
troenteritis in Paris, shows a that, while the diarrheal death rate in 
breast-fed infants varies from a minimum of 2 per thousand in win- 
ter to a maximum of but 20 per thousand during the hot months, the 
diarrheal deaths of the artificially fed fluctuate from a minimum of 
12 per thousand in winter to a maximum of 158 per thousand in the 
summer. 
In Paris during the four summer months of 1897, 2,840 infants 
under 1 year died. Of these 1,470, or 51.7 per cent, died of diarrhea. 
Of these 1,470 who died of diarrhea, only 139 were breast fed, and % 
1,331, or over 90 per cent, were artificially fed. 
The following table from Harrington (loc. cit.) illustrates ad- 
mirably this point at Berlin. The figures given cover the quin- 
quennium of 1900-1904 and relate to the incidence of deaths among 
the bottle fed and the breast fed when the method of feeding could be 
determined. 
Table 7. 
Year. 
Number of 
deaths 
among in- 
fants under 
1 year of age 
whose mode 
of feeding 
was known. 
Number of 
deaths 
among 
breast fed. 
Percentage 
of deaths 
of breast- 
fed infants. 
Percentage 
of deaths 
among 
others. 
1900 
9,558 
9,878 
7,027 
895 
9.36 
90. 60 
1901 
856 
9. 17 
90.80 
1902 
768 
10.17 
89.10 
1 c»ns 
7,680 
7,780 
l 
723 
9.41 
90.59 
1904 
. 
758 
9.68 
90.82 
Again, Helle 1 in analyzing the infantile death rate of the city of 
Graz shows that out of 170 deaths from intestinal disease in the fis- 
° Planchon: Prevalence of Diarrhea in the Artificially Fed. Obstetrique, 
January, 1900. 
6 K. Helle: Archiv f. Hygiene, 1905, VI, 18. 
