[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.

13/134 (page 9)

It is somewhat unsatisfactory to find that the percentage vaccination of those lost sight of on account of removal from the place (i-ontinw-d). where the parents lived at the time of the Eegistration of Birth, or unaccounted for at the time the return was made, should be higher than in recent years both in Birmingham and Aston Parishes. The figures for Edgbaston continue to exhibit, however, much the same satisfactory features which they have done for several years past. The returns it will have been noticed do not coincide with the Eegistration year, but are made up to Midsummer; this course is rendered unavoidable from the fact that it is quite impossible to account for the vaccination of children till they are three months old, the limit of age to which vaccination may be legally deferred. As, too, some children are not vaccinated exactly within this limit of time, it becomes necessary to keep the records open till the expiration of six months from the time of registration. DEATHS. The Deaths registered during 1886 numbered 8,499, and Deaths, were those of 4,406 males and 4,093 females j in the previous year only 8,156 deaths were recorded. This year’s number is, however, considerably lower than the average number of the ten preceding years, viz., 8,604, and the comparison is rendered all the more satisfactory by taking into account the fact that this large reduction has occurred in spite of the great increase in the population of the Borough during the last ten years. The Death-rate of the year under review is 19'57, as com- Death-rate, pared with rates of 21-01, 21-06 and 19-07 in the years 1883, 4, and 5 respectively, and 23-2 (or 3-6 per 1,000 higher), the average rate of the pi-eceding twenty-one years, the period over which records of the Borough Death-rate extend. It is therefore once more my pleasurable duty to point out that the past year, like each of its seven predecessors, adds another to the series of those which claim, compared with the previous ten years, or the period since the passing of the Public Health Act of 1875, a large saving of life. Though the saving snvm<r of Life, effected in the year under review is somewhat smaller than that of the previous year, it is nevertheless very (considerable, for I find that if the average Death-rate of the preceding ten years had been maintained during the past year, the deaths would have numbered 840 more than they actually did; calculated on this principle the saving of life in the previous year was 1,340. If, however, last year’s Death-rate had equalled that observed on an average in the three years prior to the introduction of the Public Health Act of 1875, then last year’s mortality would have been 11,294 instead of 8,499, or 2,795 more..