[Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Hebden Bridge U.D.C.

  • Hebden Bridge (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Hebden Bridge U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    per 1000, as four deaths occurred in persons belonging to the place, which were registered in other districts. The 107 deaths are distributed as follows :—Twenty-two are those of infants under one year old, against 16 in the same class for the year 1895. This infant mortality, measured by the proportion of deaths under one year to births registered, is equed to 141 per 1000. The proportion of deaths in infants under one year to every 1000 births registered in the year 1895 was 94T per 1000. Fourteen deaths were those of children over one but under five years, against thirteen during the year 1895. Thirty-four were the deaths of persons aged 60 and upwards, against thirty-five in the previous year. Three deaths were registered without medical certificates of the cause of death, and inquests were held in three cases, against three uncertified deaths, and three Coroner’s inquiries for the preceding year. You will observe that we have only 107 deaths for the year. Twenty years since, when our population was one half of what it is at present, we had about an equal number of deaths yearly. This in itself will show the great advantage Hebden Bridge has derived from the various sanitary reforms which have taken place during that period. With regard to the different causes of death, seven are attributed to the principal zymotic diseases, viz., typhoid fever 3, and whooping cough 4, equal to a rate of 09 per 1000, com- pared with two deaths and a zymotic death-rate of 02 per 1000 in the previous year. Eight deaths are ascribed to phthisis, about the average number ; twenty-seven deaths are due to inflamma- tory lung diseases, which is very high and has been only exceeded once during nineteen years. Some of these deaths may be associated with influenza, and this is the only way in which I can account for so high a mortality from chest diseases, during a winter which has not been severe. Eight deaths arose from heart disease, also a little in excess of the average. The leading features of this year’s annual report are—a low birth-rate, the lowest ever registered ; an infant mortality higher than usual ; a low death-rate, the second lowest recorded ; a low zymotic death-rate ; a continued decline in the number of uncer- tified deaths, and a very high mortality in inflammatory chest diseases.