Annual report of the Medical Department / Federated Malay States.

  • Federated Malay States. Medical Department.
Date:
[1933]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report of the Medical Department / Federated Malay States. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/76 (page 6)
    The comparisons made between birth and death-rates in the years 1932 and 1933 are based on the population estimated in each of the two years by the method of balancing equation just described and therefore offer true comparative figures representing, as accurately as can be ascertained, the birth and death-rates in each of the two past years. Births. There were 56,787 births registered during the year, being an increase of 1,616 over the total of 55,171 births in the previous year. The increase was distributed fairly evenly throughout the States of Perak, Negri Sembilan and Pahang. Selangor was alone in showing a slight decrease. The increase in the other States was due almost entirely to an increase in the number of Malay births which registered a percentage increase of 9.2. The birth-rate was 35.5 per mille compared with 34.0 per mille in 1932. Of the total births recorded, 29,689 were males and 27,098 were females, thus giving a sex ratio of male births to female births of approximately 110: 100. Deaths. Thirty-two thousand three hundred and forty deaths were recorded in 1933, an increase of 2,343 over the previous year. The crude death-rate was 20.2 per mille compared with a crude death-rate of 18.5 per mille in the previous year. The death-rate in 1932 was the lowest hitherto recorded and so the increase of 1.7 per mille in 1933 over the previous year cannot be regarded as indicating any marked deterioration in the health conditions of the community. It is probable that the relatively low death-rates recorded during the past two years reflect to some extent the lessened number of aged and decrepit labourers resulting from the large scale emigration and repatriation of Chinese and Indian workers which followed soon after the onset of the slump. With a reversal of the wave of migration a change for the worse may become evident in the health conditions of the community with a coincident rise in the death-rate. Infant Mortality. The number of deaths of infants under one year of age occurring in each thousand infants born alive was 146 compared with 137 in the previous year. The increase was common to all the Federated Malay States except Pahang. In seeking for a cause for the higher rate of mortality amongst infants the explanation which appears to be most convincing is one that associates it writh the economic stress of the past two years which now appears to be manifesting itself in a lowered vitality of mothers and infants. Although the infant mortality rate must be regarded as high, it nevertheless compares favourably with a rate of 163 in 1930 which was the last year of comparative prosperity before the onset of the slump.