[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Berkshire Combined Sanitary District.

  • Berkshire Combined Sanitary District.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Berkshire Combined Sanitary District. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/88 (page 41)
    a satisfactory condition, the regulations as to cleansing, &c., being complied with. Special inspections were made by him, in conjunction with myself, as to the question of water supply at Mortimer Common, the drainage arrangements at Wool- hampton College, and the discharge of the sewage of Padworth House into an adjoining watercourse communicating with the Kennet, now discontinued, irrigation having been adopted in accordance with my advice. The births registered in the year were: M. 255, F. 232, total 487, and the deaths 215, of which last, twenty-four oc- curred in the Oxfordshire parishes; seventeen deaths, viz., twelve in the Royal Berkshire Hospital and five in the County Lunatic Asylum, of previous residents in the district have to be added to the number just stated, making the “ corrected ” mortality M. 124, F. 108. total 232. The rates per 1,000 of the estimated population are, therefore, births 26*5, deaths 12*6, the first being identical with the rate of 1892, and the latter nearly two per 1,000 under the corresponding one, being the lowest reached since 1889, when it was but fractionally lower. The deaths were only 47*6 % of the births, and the per- centage of infantile deaths (under one year) to births did not exceed 7*4$.—see Tables IV.-VI. I have already referred to most of the deaths resulting from zymotic diseases, but at the beginning of the year measles prevailed very extensively at Beenham, Bucklebury, and some some other places, so that it became necessary to close the schools there for a time, and four deaths were occasioned by this complaint in addition to the four I have referred to as caused by the outbreak of scarlet fever, &c., in the autumn, in and near Theale. There were also three deaths from whoop- ing cough, so that the “zymotic” mortality amounted in all to fifteen, being 6-5 % of that from all causes, and at the rate of 0*8 per 1,000 living. Consumption accounted for sixteen deaths, the rate and per- centage of total mortality being 0*9 and 6*9 % respectively.