[Report 1903] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City.

  • Aberdeen (Scotland). City Council.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1903] / Medical Officer of Health, Aberdeen City. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The mortality rates at the other periods of life—the “ school/’ the “ adolescent,” the “ mature,” and the “ post-mature ”—during the past year were all under the average. The mortality rate at the “ school ” age-period was the same as in the preceding year, but it is only a little above one-third of the rate which prevailed thirty years ago. The mortality at the “ adolescent ” age-period is the lowest on record, if the rate in 1898 be excepted, which was the same as the rate last year. The rate at the “ mature ” age-period, though not the lowest recorded, is only slightly above the lowest rate; and the same observation is true of the rate at the “ post-mature ” period. In comparing the two divisions of the city in respect of these age-period rates, as lias already been done for the infant mortality, and if allowance be made for the effect of the hospitals being almost entirely situated within the St. Nicholas division, it is found that while there is a difference at each age-period in favour of the St. Machar division, the difference is greatest at the “ adolescent ” period. At this period the mortality rate last year was twice as high in the St. Nicholas as in the St. Machar division, thus resembling the mortality rate at the “infant” period. This striking difference is to be observed without much variation year after year, and is largely due to a higher death-rate from phthisis at this age-period among the working classes than among the upper classes. In a future report I hope to deal more fully with this difference and with its fundamental causes. (b) Mortality in Relation to Cause.—-Tables III. and IV. give details of this for the past year, and Table VI. affords material for a comparison with previous years. The chief causes of death were, in the order of their importance, diseases of the respiratory system, with 473 deaths, or 17 per cent, of the total deaths; diseases of the circulatory system, with 349 deaths, and tuberculous diseases, with 344 deaths, giving for each about 13 per cent.; diseases of the nervous system, with 299 deaths, or 11 per cent.; and miasmatic or the ordinary in- fectious diseases, with 21(3 deaths, or 8 per cent. Then followed next in order diseases of the digestive system (177 deaths), developmental diseases (153 deaths), malignant diseases (133 deaths), accidents and violence (84 deaths), and diseases of the urinary system (74 deaths). These diseases were, as usual, very unequally distributed over the various periods of life. The mortality from respiratory diseases was chiefly among the very young and the old; that from diseases of the circulatory system was mainly among the old; that from tuberculous diseases was, in the case of phthisis, most prevalent in adolescence and middle life, and, in respect of other forms of tuberculosis, most prevalent in childhood; that from diseases of the nervous system, chiefly at the extremes of life; and that from miasmatic diseases, mainly in early childhood. The variations, since the year 1866, in the death-rate from selected causes can be readily followed in Table VI. The total death-rate from the more common miasmatic diseases was less than that of the previous year, and was considerably under the average. The rates from scarlet fever, diph- theria, and typhoid fever were each among the lowest recorded. Only the death-rate from measles was high. The death-rate from phthisis has, for some unknown reason, not shown during the past three years the almost unbroken decline which has characterised it for nearly thirty years. In 1901 the rate was 132 per 100,000 of population—the lowest recorded rate, but in 1902 it rose slightly to 136, and last year it showed a still further increase to 143. But all three