[Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Penzance U.D.C. / Borough.
- Penzance (England). Urban District Council.
- Date:
- 1896
Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Credit: [Report 1896] / Medical Officer of Health, Penzance U.D.C. / Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![[3] Interim Reports during the Year. During the year fortnightly reports dealing with nuisances, sickness, and deaths, defects in dwelling-houses, water-fittings, closet-apparatuses, &c. (the outcome of constant and regular inspection), have been supplied to your Authority by your Medical Officer of Health, Sanitary Inspector, and Plumber; and the customary monthly reports have been furnished to the Cornwall County Council Sanitary Committee on forms supplied by them. As I am informed, no special report has been called for by the Local Government Board. Tables A and B—Vital Statistics. I now invite your attention to the enclosed tables, showing the incidence of births, diseases, and deaths in 1896. Here it will be seen that with a reasonable birth-rate satisfactory death-rates have obtained. It should be remarked of all these rates, based as they are on the census return of 1891, firstly, that that return, in the opinion of my predecessor and other competent authorities, appears to appreciably under¬ estimate our actual population at the time; secondly, that the usual method of estimating for the mid-census population of 1896 leaves out of account the unusual rapidity of growth evident in the Town during the last five years. The general death-rate, too, needs further correction by making allowance for a number of invalids who come among us often at too late a period to benefit by our climatic treatment. It is too much the fashion to prefer Continental health-resorts for the insidious beginnings of disease, and to reserve our West of England health-resorts for the later, often, by that time, irremediable stages. “ Unfit to travel abroad. Send him nearer home” is the “cue” to the representation of the last scene of all. Bearing in mind these influences which tend to unnaturally heighten our rates, we come to a consideration of the rates themselves, as based on the ’91 census returns. These are—birth-rate, 25^94 per 1000; zymotic death-rate, 1‘04 per 1000; and general death-rate, i6'87 per 1000. Correcting the latter for 1896, and subtracting the deaths of recent newcomers, the general death-rate is reduced to 15'72. The infantile mortality, or deaths under one year old, per 1000 births is 1517. All the death-rates are appreciably lower than those of the preceding year. Analysing the deaths according to age, we find that no less than one-third of their number (69 out of the total of 210) took place at or above the age of 65 years. Of these 34 were between 70 and 80 years of age, 18 between 80 and 90, one 92, one 93, and one 94 years of age. Deaths from respiratory diseases were few (23), as also deaths from Phthisis (seven of residents, seven of newcomers—total 14). Zymotic Diseases. A great many cases of Measles (184) and of Scarlatina (48) were notified during the year. The mildness of these cases is shown by the fact that no deaths from Measles occurred, and but three from Scarlatina; these latter representing indeed the entire mortality from all notifiable diseases. Two cases of Scarlatina](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29986643_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
