[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.

  • Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/8
    IBorough of S)arlington. ANNUAL REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH FOR THE YEAR ENDING 31st DECEMBER, 1899. The year rolls round so rapidly that I only just seem to have finished my report for 1898 when the task of making out that for its successor is presented to me, and as the past year has been a pretty busy one in sanitary work there should be no lack of material to present to the Committee. POPULATION. It is difficult to estimate our population in the present decade, as the increase in the former decade gi%'es little indication of the increase in the pre.sent. During the decade ending in 1891 the population of the borough increased at the rate of about 300 per annum. If one looks at the birth-rate and estimates the increase of the population on that alone our progress is about the same. But if one takes the number of houses built since the cen.sus the papulation should have increased at about the rate of 1,000 a year, or a present population of 47,000. I believe there have been something like 1,800 houses built since the census was last taken. I do not wish to over-e.stimate the population, as that would vitiate our vital statistics and piesent them in too favourable a light, and will therefore take the population at the same figure as last year, 43,000. VITAL .STATISTICS.-BIRTH-RATE. During the year the number of births registered in the borough was 1,227, an increase of 46 on the jireceeding year. In my report for 1898 1 gave a table showing (he number of births registered each year since my appointment as Medical Officer of Health. This table showed a decline in the births from 1,448 in the first year of my appointment (1882) to 1,181 in 1898. These figures give a birth-rate of 28-5 per thousand population. I am favoured by the County Medical Officer with figures for the Administrative County, which show that our birth-rate is 6-6 below that of the County.