[Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Mottram U.D.C.

  • Mottram (England). Urban District Council.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1902] / Medical Officer of Health, Mottram U.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    The birth-rate is 6.3 below the mean birth-rate for the prev¬ ious 10 years, and the death-rate is 2.2 below the mean death-rate for the same period. INFANT MORTALITY.—Eight of the deaths registered were of Infants under 1 year of age, as compared with 5 for last year, and is equal to a death-rate of 2.3 per 1,000 living. Although this number is 3 in excess of that of last year, it is a fairly satisfac¬ tory infant death-rate for a manufacturing district, where the nursing-out system is common, the average infant death-rate for the previous 10 years being 16.3. The decrease of the infant death-rate last year is, like the previous one, principally due to the total absence of Diarrhoea from the death list, no deaths having been ascribed to this cause since the autumn of 1899. This disease is much influenced by insanitary surroundings, more especially in the autumn, after a hot, dry summer. In most cottages the back kitchen or scullery is also, the store room for food. Tainted food, milk, and foul air, play an important part in the pro¬ duction of this disease, and the absence of deaths from it is no doubt in a great measure attributable to the prevention of escape of sewer gas into the houses by disconnecting slop stone pipes and trapping the drains outside the houses, which was so generally adopted a few years since. There is also a gradual, but growing knowledge among the more intelligent as to the feeding and general management of hand- fed children. The pamphlets on this subject by the County Medical Officer of Health, which were distributed in the district two years since, have also contributed to this desirable result. Included in the total deaths at all ages were 3 Pneumonia, 1 Bronchitis, 8 Heart Disease, and 1 Rheumatic Fever. INFECTIOUS DISEASES.—-The number of cases notified in 1902 was 13, viz. :—5 Scarlet Fever, 4 Enteric Fever, and 4 Erysipelas. This is 3 in excess of last year, but is considerably under the average for the last 7 years. ZYMOTIC MORTALITY.—Two cases of Enteric Fever only, equal to a death-rate of 0.6. SCARLET FEVER.—The first case appeared in Mottram Moor on May 7th, a second in the same locality on the 12th, and this boy infected his sister in the same house a fortnight later. The disease was very prevalent at the time in Hollingworth, and as the two places are only separated by a boundary line, and al1 three