Report of the Commissioner of Health, Kingston, Jamaica / [James Scott].

  • Scott, James.
Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Commissioner of Health, Kingston, Jamaica / [James Scott]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    2i during the year. The shipping has, I btiheve been free of any cases of the disease, but there being no pubhc records to guidi; me, I cannot venture to say that none have been received from that source at the PubHc Hospital. 86. With regard to infantile diseases and infantile mortality, no satisfactory information can be given about them, in conse- quence of there being no registration of sickness, nor any of births and deaths. The death-rate among children has always been high in Kingston, and I fear it will continue to be so, so long as the habitations of the poorer classes are ill-constructed, overcrowded, badly ventilated, and there is not a due observance of cleanliness ; in fact, so long as there is no regard for the laws of hygeine. Among this class, through the poverty of parents, children are badly fed and scantily clothed, wliilst, in sickness, they are slow to obtain medical aid, even if afforded gratuitously, all these circumstances contributing to a high death-rate. Through Legislation alone, may such evils be averted. 87. I have no means of obtaining such statistical information, as would enable me to rcpoit with official accuracy npon the ac- tual condition of the public health. There is no llegistrntion of Births and Deaths, the necessity for which I have shewn in for- mer Reports. Until a Law be passed, placing it in my power to obtain necessary statistical iulbrmation in regard to births and deaths among the population, and to know from time to time, the nature and amount of any ]>revailing sickness, as wcM as tlie locahtics where it prevails, it will be impos- ihli' for nic to pvi-pare such a Report on tlie state of tlie pubhc health, as it is desiralile the Board should have. 88. In a Report of the Committee on the Registration of Diseases, passed at a meeting of the British Medical Association in London in 1874, I find the following passage, bearing on this subject, The urgent need of such a registration of sick- ness is absolutely proved by reference to most of tlie re- ports of the numcrons IMedical Officers of Health appoint- ed under the Public Health Act of 1872. Many of these Officers complain of f lic want of early information of the out- break of infi'cl i;)iis or epidc^nic diseases in their districts ; and that there are jm records of disease at their disposal; no contribu- tors to supply them cai'efully and promptly with statistics of sickness and mortahty, or to announce the presence of epidemic disease. 89. Of such high importance are these matters considered, that a men^orial has been presented to the'President of the Local Governn cnt Board, praying for the establishment of a National