[Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Northampton R.D.C.

  • Northampton (England). Rural District Council.
Date:
1905
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1905] / Medical Officer of Health, Northampton R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    To the Chairman and Members of the Northampton Rural District Council. January, 1906. Gentlemen, I beg to present my Report for the year 1905, with the usual tables. I have estimated the population at the same total as in the previous year. There has been a small amount of building done at Duston, but I believe that this increase is only about sufficient to make up for the deficiency shown to be going on in this district by the last census returns. At present building operations at Weston Favell have not commenced. The total number of births during the year was 133—11 less than in 1904 and 23 less than in 1903 : altogether it is the least number of births occurring during the last ten years, and only shows a birth rate of 202 per 1,000. Of these births 62 were males and 71 females. The average birth rate of the district for the last ten years is 26. The number of deaths in children under one year of age was only 12, giving a ratio per 1,000 births registered of 90; this ratio is exactly the same as last year, when there were 13 deaths in this class, but then the total number of births was larger. This is a much lower average than the mean for the last ten years, which stands at 121. The total number of deaths for the whole district was 151, giving a ratio per 1,000 of 23-7. Of these deaths, however, 83 occurred in Berry Wood Asylum, so that deducting these we reduce our total to only 68 deaths of residents in the district, giving a ratio of only 12-7 per 1,000. Last year there were 79 deaths with a ratio of 14-7 per 1,000, and the average for the last ten years is 78 deaths, with an average of about 14 per 1,000, so that the death rate for the district is exceedingly low, and was only as low as this in 1902. The deaths in Berry Wood Asylum were also as low as they have been during the last ten years. Table II. shows the comparisons between the births and deaths in the three sub-divisions of the district during the present year, and also during the last ten years. In the Weston Favell district the births are exactly the same as in the previous year, while there were 7 deaths less; this district has now been considerably curtailed since Abington was taken from it and given to the town, so that no comparison can be drawn in this case from the average of the last ten years. In the Duston sub-district there were 36 births and 16 deaths against 35 and 15 respectively in the previous year. In the Kislingbury sub-district there were 78 births and 43 deaths against 90 and 48 in the previous year. Thus the great deficiency in births is due to the Kislingbury district, whilst in the other two the numbers were about stationary, whilst the deaths are less in the Weston Favell and Kislingbury districts and nearly stationary in the Duston district. Table III. shows the cases of infectious disease notified during the year. There was a total of 76, which compares as follows with the previous years :— 1904 ... . . • ... 103 1903 ... ... ... 21 1902 ... ... ... 30 1901 ... • . • . . • 21 1900 ... ... ... 12 The large total in the last two years is almost entirely due to the number of scarlet fever cases that have occurred in this district during these years—83 in 1904 and 69 in 1905. There can be no doubt that scarlet fever is more prevalent in this district than formerly, and I attribute it to the fact that scarlet fever has also been very prevalent in the town of Northampton, and it is carried into our district by the free intercommunication that exists with the town. Thus, of the 22 cases in the Kislinghury sub-district most of them occurred in the village of Harpole, which is a large shoe-making village with persons continually passing backwards and forwards to and from Northampton. Duston again is close to the town, and many cases of scarlet fever there I could » ilSfr i