[Report 1884] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham.

  • Birmingham (England). Council.
Date:
1884
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1884] / Medical Officer of Health, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/140 (page 13)
    third quarter was 3-46 per 1,000 higher than that for the Deaths summer quarter of the previous year and that of the fourth quarter 1 per 1,000 higher than the rate of mortality for the last quarter of 1883. Practically speaking then, the chief movements in the chief Death-rate last year, as compared with that for the four “ufrcieath- quarters of the previous year, were confined to the first and the tliird quarters, the great improvemenc in the mortality rate noticeable in the first quarter being nullified by the consider- ably increased Death-rate of the third. These changes are without doubt very largely referable to ^euveen hlnth influences beyond the controul of a Sanitary Authority, are in ami climatic fact the consequence in the one instance of a fortunately benign, genial atmosphere instead of the usual winter’s cold, and in the other case of exceptionally great heat. One cannot help inferring that such is the case when one compares the mortality from diseases of the respiratory organs in the last two winter quarters and that from Diarrhoeal diseases in the last two summer quarters, for while the rate of mortality from chest affections in the first quarter of 1884 was 1'3 per 1,000 below that of the previous winter quarter, that from Diarrhoea in the past summer quarter was 2-7 higher than that of the preceding corresponding quarter. Thus has the weather again played a great part in influenc- ing our Death-rate, for it may not yet be forgotten how much our Death-rate of the previous year was.affected adversely by an unusually cold early spring, and beneficially by a cool smnmer and autumn. Perhaps the most remarkable feature, however, revealed by a study of last year’s mortality figures quarter by quarter is that the Death-rate of the second quarter, usually the healthiest time of the year, was in the spring quarter of the year under notice 0-6 per 1,000 higher than that of the first or winter quarter, which is most frequently the unhealthiest quarter of the year. With the view of illustrating how the variations in the Death-rate during the year followed closely on meteorological changes, let me draw attention to the principal of both of these. The first three months of the year were unusually mild, very few days in this period having a mean temperature below the average, while they were not characterised by a single long spell cf wintry weather; their very remarkable character may be gathered from the fact that the lowest thermometric reading was 25°-5 giving only 6°-5 of frost as the lowest temperature recorded in any night of the winter quarter.