[Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Rotherham County Borough.

  • Rotherham (England). County Borough Council
Date:
1913
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1913] / Medical Officer of Health, Rotherham County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    5/114 (page 5)
    ANNUAL REPORT, 19)3. TO THE MAYOR, ALDERMEN AND COUNCILLORS OF THE COUNTY BOROUGH OF ROTHERHAM. Gentlemen, I have the honour to submit for your consideration my Annual Report on the health of the inhabitants of the County Borough of Rotherham for the year 1913, and its sanitary conditions generally. It is, I consider, a matter of congratulation that the death rate, 15.56 per 1,000 living, is somewhat lower than that for the previous year, when it was 15.79 per 1,000. For a manufacturing town like Rotherham this cannot but be regarded as satisfactory, as there is always a large amount of chronic poverty in our midst. There were 1,004 deaths during 1913, as compared with 1,003 for the year 1912. The estimated population of the Borough during the middle of 1913 was 64,500. The provisional estimates of population are based on the results of the Censuses of 1901 and 1911. On reference to pages 2 and 3 of this Report, which contain the Annual Summaries for 1913 and 1912, it will be seen at a glance how this satisfactory decrease in the death rate has been brought about. For example, Measles only caused 7 deaths in the year 1913, as compared with 93 in 1912; Scarlet Fever, 7 deaths as compared with 6; Whoop¬ ing Cough, 29 as compared with 13; Diphtheria, 11 as com¬ pared with 9; Typhoid Fever, 3 as compared with 10; Diarrhoea, 49 as compared with 11; Pulmonary, Tubercul¬ osis, 68 as compared with 55; other Tubercular Diseases, 27 as compared with 29; Cancer, 52 as compared with 56; Respiratory Diseases, 190 as compared with 166; and al] other diseases, 559 as compared with 554. The marked diminution in the death rate from Typhoid Fever is due principally still to three causes. Firstly, to improved sanitation, in which, of course,, is included the con¬ version of abominable filthy privy middens into water closets ;