[Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). County Borough Council.
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    4/80 (page 4)
    Statistics September 17th and 9 a.m. on the following day. There has been no such downfall in Barnsley for the last 15 years, at all events. The rather moderate rainfall in June, July and August seems to have produced conditions exceptionally favourable to the production of flies, and although the 4ft. earth thermometer did not reach 56° during any of these months, yet there was a considerable prevalence of Diarrhoea, with 46 deaths in the months of August and September alone. The inclement weather of the first 4 months of the year also seems to have been responsible for some increase over the usual number of deaths from Eespiratory Diseases, and these two causes seem to have been responsible for the increase in our nett death rate over that of the previous year. The population at the Census of 1911 having been 50,614 and my estimation of the population in July of 1912 51,800, I thought last January it would be wiser to count on an increase of 1,000 in the population rather than one of 1,500, and made my estimate 52,500 as being the population of the Borough at the middle of 1913, and so slightly under-estimate the population rather than over-estimate it, lest a possible diminution of the rate of increase of population should give us too low a death rate and birth rate. On this estimate of the population the following statistics are based. During the year 913 deaths and 1,608 births were registered in the Borough of Barnsley, but certain corrections have to be made to both figures. Five of the births—all of them illegitimate—properly belong to other Districts, while one illegitimate birth registered outside the Borough belongs to Barnsley. Five births, therefore, have to be deducted, and 1 added, making a nett deduction of 4, and, therefore, during the year 1,604 births are properly credited to Barnsley, giving a birth rate of 30’55 ; the average for the previous 10 years being 33'84, and the 1912 birth rate being 30'38, so that although we are below the average of the 10 years there is a slight increase as compared with the previous year. Of the 913 deaths registered in the Borough 176 were in public institutions, 90 of these being deaths of residents and 86 of non-residents, while 32 deaths of residents in the Borough occurred outside the District. The 86 non-residents registered in Barnsley have to be deducted, the 32 registered outside at other places have to be added, a nett deduction of 54. The nett deaths belonging to the Borough are therefore 859, giving a death rate of 16’36, compared with 17'89 for the previous 10 years, and 14‘46 for 1912.