[Report 1892] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds Borough.

  • Leeds City Council
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1892] / Medical Officer of Health, Leeds Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    62/170 (page 56)
    the borough as a whole, however, the accidental inequalities oi notification to some extent counteract one another, and a larger number of reported cases generally means an increased prevalence of disease. I shall therefore first deal with deaths. The Registrar-General credited us with a death-rate from continued fever of 0*17 per thousand living in the city, against an average in Leeds of 0*31 in the preceding ten years, and of 0T5 in the 33 large towns in 1892. The average of the 28 towns for the ten preceding years was 0*25. Of the English towns with a population above 250,000, London had a death-rate from this cause of 0T1, Birmingham 0*08, Manchester 0*25, Sheffield 0*12, and Liverpool of 0*26, against our death-rate of 0*17. Of the other three towns in the United Kingdom with more than a population of a quarter of a million, Edinburgh had a death-rate of 0*13, Glasgow 0*18, and Dublin of 0*40 from this group of diseases. In regard to the group we therefore stand fifth of the nine towns in this respect, whereas in general mortality, as shown in Table 2, p. 10, we stand second in the same list. Leeds death rates from fever for 20 years. Our rate of 0*17 is again an improvement on that of 0*20 last year, which was itself an improvement upon the rate for the year before, which had been 0*30, although even that was not, as we have seen, above the average of preceding years. Taking the same 20 years, the general death rates for which are given in Table la, and to avoid decimals dealing with 100,000 living instead of 1,000, I find that for the five year period 1872-76, fever caused 76 deaths in Leeds in every 100,000 of the population. In the five years which followed that death-rate was reduced to 35. In the years 1882 to 1886 it again rose slightly and became 37 per 100,000. In the years 1887 to 1891 it fell to 26, while, as we have just said, last year it was only 17 per 100,000 living. It is interesting to notice how apparently the causes which have been at work to diminish the death rate of Leeds as a whole have in a somewhat similar manner, but to a much larger extent, diminished the mortality from continued fever. It is needless to remark that there is still much room for improvement* * The mortality from fever dropped 54 per cent, from the first to the second quinquennium, but only 66 per cent, from the first to the fourth. The clearance of the insanitary area in the old North Ward seems again to account for most of this improvement.