[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.

    22/140 (page 18)
    Distribution of Deaths among theaetalperioos (oontinued). Average age at death. One need not go far to seek the principal causes of the decided fluctuations in the figures at several of the above aetal periods, which appear on contrasting last year’s totals with those of 1883. The first great difference that strikes the eye is the larger mortality in children under five years of age, and I need hardly say, after previous remarks, that the more than ordinary fatality of Diarrhcea in the warm months of the year is principally accountable for it, although it is true that an epidemic prevalence of Measles during the first nine months of the year also contributed to swell the totals of mortality in children between one and five years of age. As a matter of fact the number of deaths under five years of age from Diarrhoea was higher in the third quarter of 1884 than in that period of the preceding year, by almost exactly the same figure as the total deaths under five during the year 1884 were in excess of those for 1883. The second most prominent feature revealed by a com- parison of the figures for the last two years is that last year’s deaths were considerably fewer in number than in the preceding year among those who had reached 60 years of age; and here, again, a satisfactory explanation is readily afforded by the circumstance that more than the whole of the actual diminution at this period of life occurred in the first quarter of the year, when the almost uniformly higher temperature for the season which chai'acterised last winter quarter, presents a most marked contrast to the long spell of bitterly severe polar winds in March, 1883, which occasioned so high a mortality among the aged, largely from affections of the breathing organs, though a gi-eat nmnber of deaths at this period of life were set down to old age. The smaller mortality from both Smallpox and Scarlet Fever has greatly helped to bring about the few^er deaths registered between the ages of 5 and 40, while the increased amount of mortality in persons between 40 and 60 seems to be pretty equally spread among the various groups of disease. The average Death-age for each quarter of the past two years has been as under:— First Quarter ... 1883. 29 years and 8 months. 1884. 27 years and 7 months. Second „ 34 » 1 26 )) 9 Third „ 22 „ 2 V 20 99 5 99 Fourth „ 27 » 1 9} 27 9» 3 99 Whole Year 28 „ 3 99 25 99 6 99 It will bo observed on reviewing the figures for the year recently ended that they were lower in the first three quarters than in the corresponding periods of the previous year, wdiile the mean Death-age of the fourth quarter shows a very slight