Annual report on the Medical Department / Sierra Leone.

  • Sierra Leone. Medical Department.
Date:
[1907]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the Medical Department / Sierra Leone. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The following diseases were responsible for the largest proportion of the deaths :— Respiratory System • • • ... 161 Nervous System • • • 58 Malarial Fevers • • • ... 202 Digestive System • • • 95 Circulatory ,, ... • • • 42 Urinary ,, . . . ... 24 Of the total number of deaths 452 were males and 364 females, and of these again 271, or 33 per cent., were under the age of five years. The total deaths under one year was 210, showing a death rate of 357 per 1,000 births for infants under one year, as compared with the infant mortality in England of 132 per 1,000 in 1906. The infantile death rate for the past seven years has been 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 575 466 471 398 461 434 357 per 1,000 births, so that this death rate for 1907, though still very high, as compared with that of England, is nevertheless the lowest for the past seven vears. i/ This high infant death rate is, in my opinion, due chiefly to three potent causes—viz., 1, Malaria, 2, Carelessness in the management of child-birth, 3, Insanitary surroundings, and I may add 4, Ignorance as to feeding, clothing, and cleanliness of infants, and as this latter mental attribute is found even in the most highly cultured and civilized communities we must not be surprised if we find it pervading sections of the inhabitants of West African towns, entailing, owing to the trying climatic influences and the constant presence of the endemic diseases peculiar to Tropical West Africa, a proportionally higher death rate among young children. In reference to the general death rate I only wish to refer to the lowering in the number of deaths due to diseases of the digestive system. This, in my opinion, must be put down to the people in general becoming more educated to the use of the wholesome drinking water now supplied in the public stand¬ pipes throughout the town. It is a well-known fact to medical men and others that the aboriginal native of the lower class, who has always been accustomed to drinking impure well or river water, prefers his drinking water to have a certain amount of “ body ” in it, i.e., plenty of flavour of a saline or earthy variety and often of some more pronounced impurity. A water filtered and consequently without a marked flavour is, to him, unfit to drink. Patients in hospital are frequently known to crave for well water with strongly marked saline or other constituents, complaining that the pure filtered water (from Berkfield or Pasteur Filters) had no taste and that it “ no satisfy ” them. EUROPEAN DEATH AND SICK KATES. The total number of deaths among the European residents in the Colony during the year were 11. And the causes of these were as follows :— Black water Fever ... ... ... ... 3 Remittent Fever ... ... ... ... 2 Phthisis ... ... ... ... ... 1 Nephritis ... ... ... ... ... 1 Heat Stroke ... ... ... ... ... 1 Alcoholism ... ... ... ... ... 1 Valvular Disease of Heart ... ... ... 1 Ptomaine poisoning ... ... ... ... 1 and two non-resident cases landed from vessels, one malarial Cachexia and the other suicide. Of the former five were military, two officials, two missionaries and two merchants.