§ Mr. JOHNSTONasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is now in a position to give the official figures on the infant mortality in Bombay during the year 1921?
§ Earl WINTERTONThe figures of infant mortality which I quoted in replying to the hon. Member's previous question were misleading in that they referred to the whole of the Bombay Presidency and not specifically to Bombay city. According to the reports of the health officer of the Bombay municipality the infant mortality in Bombay city was 067 per 1,000 births in 1921, 403 per 1,000 in 1922, 411 per 1,000 in 1923 and 419 per 1,000 in 1924. Examining in 1922 the vital statistics from the beginning of the century the health officer remarked that the fluctuations in infant mortality, which corresponded in time and direction with those of the general death rate, were indirectly or directly due to plague in the first decade of the century and to influenza in 1918–21.