[Report 1886] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.

  • Birmingham (England). Council.
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1886] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    11/134 (page 7)
    The fall iu the Birth-rate, which is coininon, though to a Rirth-mte. smaller extent, to the whole of England and Wales, proceeds unchecked, and has now gone on to a remarkably low point, for it amounts to no less than 28 iier cent, on the figure for 1876. The following are the birth-rates of the principal large Towns English towns during the past year :— compared. Towni^ London L’pool Birm. Alanch. Leeds Slieff’ld Salfd N’ca.stle N’wich Bristol 33-2 32-3 33T. 32-9 36-3 33-9 34-1 34-4 39-.'i 347 .30-ii It will be noticed that our birth-rate has fallen below that of the twenty-eight large towns, and is now lower than that of any town in the above list with the exception of London and Bristol. There can be no doubt that the most important factor in the very low birth-rates of the great majority of the large towns, and of the country as a whole, is the abnormally low marriage-rate obtaining of late years; this latter feature is, without question, the consequence of the prolonged and universal depression in commerce and agriculture. VACCINATION. The returns for the Parish of Birmingham, for which I am vaccination in indebted to Messrs. Rust, Blanche, and Knight, Vaccination Officers, show that of 8,496 births registered in that portion of the Borough during the year which ended on the 30th of June last, 7,109, or 83-7 per cent, were successfully vaccinated; while 898, or 10’6 per cent, died before vaccination was per- formed, and the vaccination of 109 others, or 1-3 per cent, was postponed on production of a medical certificate stating that their health was not sufficiently good to justify the operation, or that they were insusceptible of vaccination. Two hundred and twentj'-two children were removed to places unknown to the Vaccination Officers, and it is highly probable that in the majority of cases these have escaped vaccination altogether, and so remain unprotected from attacks of Small Pox. The children, to the number of 158, not thus accounted for had either been removed to other districts and brought under the knowledge of other Vaccination Officers, or no satisfactory account could be given of them at the time of the making of the return . In that portion of the Parish of Aston within the Borough the births of 5,516 children were recorded by the local Registry’s in the same period of time; of these 4,530, or 82-1 per cent, were vaccinated with success, 593, or 10-8 per cent, died un- vaccinated, and 84, or 1-5 percent, were unfit for or insusceptible of vaccination; the proportion who escaped vaccination by removing from the district, or to other parts of it without the In Aston Parish.