[Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.

  • Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1897
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1897] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1/8
    Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health for the Year ending gist December, i8gj. To the Chairman and Members of the Sanitary Committee of the Darlington Corporation. Gentlemen, I beg to submit the following Report of the Health of the Borough, and the operations carried out by the Sanitary Department during the past year. ACREAGE AND POPULATION.—The acreage of the Borough has remained the same as it has been for the last one or two decades. The population has not, of course, remained the same, and the probability is that it has increased, as a considerable number of new houses have been occupied during the year. If the population is increasing this decade at the same rate as it increased in the preceding decade, we should have had in Darlington at the middle of 1896 a population of 39,710, and at the middle of 1897 a population of 40,030. Owing to the activity in the building trade, and the ready manner in which new houses are occupied, it is believed that the increase has been more rapid than in the ten years preceding the last census. I, therefore, estimated the population at the middle of 1896 at 41,000, and if that estimate was correct, there must have been at the middle of 1897 a further increase of 400 or 500. I am not willing to take too optimistic a view of our position and statistics, and will consequently base the statistics to be found in this report on the same population as those of 1896. BIRTHS.—There were registered during the first quarter 134 male and 131 ! female, second quarter 163 male and 144 female, third quarter 158 male and 141 female, and in the last quarter 177 male and 143 female births, being 632 males and 559 females, total 1,191, or 44 more than in the preceding year. This gives a birth rate of 290 per thousand. DEATHS.—During the first quarter there were registered in the Borough 75 male and 72 female, second quarter 89 male and 72 female, during the third quarter 74 male and 65 female, and in the last quarter 76 male aud 77 female deaths, being 314 males and 286 females, total 600, or 6 more than during 1896. This gives a death rate for the year of 14-6 per thousand. From the above figures, it will be seen that 73 more males were born during the year, and that there were only 28 more deaths among males than among females. The tables appended to this report give the numbers that died during different periods of life, and the causes of death. INFANTILE MORTALITY.—The deaths under this class, i.e., in children under one year, are five less than last year, viz , 148, and compare favourably with the average of deaths in the same period throughout England. The Darlington returns are 124 Infantile deaths per thousand births, and the average of England about 148.