[Report 1930] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough.
- Darlington (England). County Borough Council.
- Date:
- 1930
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1930] / Medical Officer of Health, Darlington County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![i I 1 I there indecency, overcrowding, and too intimate mixing of le sexes, but jwominent among the sanitary defects, the following re noted in almost every case:— 1. Absence of damp-proof courses in the basement walls, therefore much ground moisture rising. 2. No through ventilation. 3. Inadequate lighting to ensure safety or cleanliness. 4. Steep dark staircases. 5. No food stores. 6. Inadequate closet accommodation and washing facilities. The table of figures has been pre})ared to give statistical tDnfirmation of the already well-known harmful effects of such n environment on the Public Health. It shows each ^A'ard’s opulation classified, individually, in houses, in rooms, and rooms er ])erson. For the sickness and mortality statistics I have sleeted certain diseases where the diagnosis is confirmed bv two r more doctors, and where social conditions are closely in- estigated in each case—Scarlet Fever, Diphtheria, Measles, ’iilmonary and Non-Pulmonary Tuberculosis and Pneumonia. Pack-to-back ))ropcrty in each of the seven Wards is ssociated, not only with its own mortality figure, but with a ery marked increase in the selected diseases death-rate in the ion-back-to-l)ack houses, so that not only is it harmful per sc, mt the danger seems to overflow and infect the “ contact ” good )roperty. On the whole the incidence and death-rate of the selected liseases in back-to-back areas are doul)lc the figures in non- )ack-to-back, and this fact is further l)orne out b}’- the consistency )f increase in the total death-rate figures of the last column. If all the Wards had been as satisfactory as Pierremont Ward Fere would have been a saving in deaths of about 20 per 1,()()() copulation during the five years—a total of over 1,()()() lives for Fe seven Wards—which, at the a\xu’age ^'aIuc of £240 per head, ’epresents £240,000 on an actuarial basis. TUBERCULOSIS AND HOUSING. On the question of tuberculosis I have collected the details F the last 500 cases notified, and find that 95 lived in back-to- back houses, an incidence of 1 in 40 of that population, while 195 arose in other than back-to-back j)ro2)ertv, an incidence of Duly 1 in 160—a relationship of 4 to 1.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29149125_0063.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
