Dr. W. Ogle's report to the local government board on the prevalence of scarlet fevre in the Pontypool registration sub-district, and on the general sanitary condition of that sub-district.

  • Ogle, W.
Date:
1881
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. W. Ogle's report to the local government board on the prevalence of scarlet fevre in the Pontypool registration sub-district, and on the general sanitary condition of that sub-district. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    Dr. W. Ogle’s Report to the Local Government Board on the prevalence of Scarlet Fever in the Pontypool Registration Snb-district, and on the general Sanitary Condition of that Sub-district. Edward C. Seaton, M.D., Medical Department, September 20, 1879. Owing! to the very large number of deaths from scarlet fever registered in the latter half of 1878 in the Pontypool sub-district, I was instructed by the Local Government Board to visit that locality and report on the circum- stances under which this mortality had occurred, and generally on the sanitary condition of the sub-district. This sub-district is an aggregation of five parishes, with boundaries that have no reference to those of sanitary areas, but intersect these in so irregular a manner as to render the statistics as published by the Registrar General unavailable for sanitary purposes. Thus a small part of the town of Blaen- avon is within the sub-district, while a much larger part is not only in another sub-district, but in a totally different district, namely, Abergavenny ; so that the statistics of mortality for that town can only be got by going laboriously through the registers both at Pontypool and Abergavenny. So also the area of the Rural Sanitary Authority of Pontypool is partly in and partly without the bounds of this sub-district. Three Sanitary Authorities, however, namely, the Local Boards of Ponty- pool, Panteg, Abersychan, have areas that fall entirely within the sub-district; and as it appeared, on going through the register, that the scarlet fever mortality of 1878 was entirely confined to these three sanitary districts, I limited my inspection to them, leaving the remaining fragments alone. The sub-district contained in 1861 a population numbering 22,633, which in 1871 had grown to 25,287. If the increase has gone on at the same rate, the population should now be 27,410; but it is believed that no such increase has occurred, owing to the depression in the iron and coal trades, and this opinion is supported by the statistics of births, the number of which has in fact somewhat diminished. The population in 1871 was thus divided:— Parishes. Population. Sanitary District. Panteg - Trevethy: 2,761 Panteg Local Board District. part of ... 14,569 Abersychan Local Board District. part of ... Mamhilad ... - 4,834 ] Pontypool Local Board District. Llanhilleth - Llanvihangel-Pontymoile > 1,876 Part of district of R. S. A. of PontvpooL The annual death-rate on an average of 20 years (1851-70) was 22-65 ; and on the assumption that the population has remained stationary since the last census, has averaged 22’0 for the last eight years (1871-8). This doubtless is a high rate, especially as the population is one in which there is a compara- tively small proportion of persons over 60, and also as the workhouse is not situated in the sub-district, so that many pauper deaths are omitted in the calculation. When, however, we take into account the fact that males pre- ponderate largely in the population,* and that they are almost all engaged in * In all England and Wales of every 1,000 persons, 513 are females, 487 are males. But in Pontypool sub-district the males are 522, the females 478. Males, it need hardly be said, have invariably a higher death-rate than females. In all England and Wales of 1,000 persons, 511 are engaged in industrial occupations and 198 in agriculture. But in Pontypool district, (and the difference would be still more marked in the sub-district,) the industrial proportion rises to 628, the agricultural sinks to 127. M 589. Wt. 3864. A