[Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, West Bromwich County Borough.

  • West Bromwich (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1909] / Medical Officer of Health, West Bromwich County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The total number of deaths amounted to 1,184, including deaths in the Union Workhouse, the District Hospital, and other local institutions, but this total when corrected by the deduction of non-residents in these places and by the addition of West Bromwich residents who have died outside the Borough amounts to only 1,032, and shows a net death-rate of only 14.7, being the record for the Borough, and showing that its sanitary condition has materially improved in the last twenty years. I regret to have to report no less than 14 cases of Typhoid. This outbreak consisted of a very limited area in Church Lane. A careful inquiry excluded most of the commonly recognised causes of an outbreak, but it appeared that a woman who had suffered from the disease some time previously had gone to reside in a row of houses where a single privy was used in common by several houses, and it is probable that she was what is known as a “ carrier ” case, which, although apparently recovered, still retains its infectivity. All these cases were removed to Hospital, where two died. Two fatal cases occurred in other parts of the Borough, one of which was said to have been imported from the Herefordshire hop-fields. Tuberculosis in various forms is returned as the cause of 91 deaths, i.e., 1.3 per 1,000, which is not excessive for a town situated as we are. The notification of poor-law cases of Phthisis is now in operation, but so far it has been carried out somewhat imperfectly in this Borough. The only treat¬ ment of Tuberculosis is that carried out in the Union Work- house Infirmary, as to which I have received a very interesting Report from the Medical Officer, which I append:-— “ No case of Pulmonary Tuberculosis is admitted into the general wards of the Infirmary. A separate ward is re¬ served on the male and on the female side for such cases. If other cases are admitted into these wards they are chronic helpless cases. No spitting is permitted. Patients not con¬ fined to the wards have pocket spitting cups, while the sputum of those in the wards is disinfected with Izal. Extra venti¬ lation with windows always open is the order in these wards, and when the weather is suitable the inmates are allowed on the balcony isolated from others. Other recommendations are under consideration, but have been deferred in the un¬ settled state of Poor-Law Institutions/’ Deaths from Zymotic Disease Typhoid Fever Tuberculosis