Dr. Parson's report to the local government board on the prevalence of typhoid fever in the Totnes urban and rural sanitary districts, and on the general sanitary condition of those districts.

  • Parson, H. Franklin.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Parson's report to the local government board on the prevalence of typhoid fever in the Totnes urban and rural sanitary districts, and on the general sanitary condition of those districts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    1/16 (page 1)
    Dr. Parsons’s Report to the Local Government Board on Typhoid Fever in the Totnes Urban and Rural Sanitary Districts, and on the General Sanitary Condition of those Districts. George Buchanan, Medical Department, April 75 1881. The Registration District (Union) of Totnes has an area of 97,914 acres, and contained in 1871 a population of 35,557. It includes the municipal boroughs of Totnes and Dartmouth, and the local board districts of Paignton and Lower Brixham, with a part of that of lvybridge. The remaining portion of the district, with an area of 85,721 acres and a population of 17,027, is under the jurisdiction of the Guardians as Rural Sanitary Authority. This inspection, made in November 1880, was ordered by the Local Govern- ment Board in consequence of typhoid fever having been unduly prevalent in 1879-80 in the borough of Totnes, and for several years past in different parts of the rural district. Totnes Rural Sanitary District. The Totnes Registration District extends from the English Channel (Torbay) on the east to the hills of Dartmoor on the west, but the coast is mostly occupied by the urban sanitary districts of Paignton, Lower Brixham, and Dartmouth. The tidal estuary of the Dart, however, with its numerous creeks and branches, runs up far inland through the rural district. The district is very hilly, that is to say, there is no level ground, the whole surface being a succession of steep slopes and narrow valleys, although, with the exception of the Dartmoor Tors, none of the elevations attain any notable height. Except on the western border, which touches the granite of Dartmoor, the geological formation is Devonian, usually slaty in character, but with numerous bosses of hard limestone and trap. The slate or “ shillet ” is much contorted, and traversed by numerous joints ; it abounds in springs. The soil is fertile, mostly pasture, and the bottoms and lower slopes of the valleys, as high as it is practicable to convey streams, are laid out as water meadows, and are under irrigation through the winter. The inhabitants of the villages on the Dart estuary arc engaged in fishing, boat-building, and other maritime pursuits. The woollen manu- facture is carried on on a large scale at Buckfastleigh, and to a small extent at other places in the district, and on the borders of Dartmoor there arc a few copper and tin mines. In the remaining parts of the district the population is purely agricultural. Vital Statistics. Tiie following figures are taken from the tables accompanying the annual reports of the Medical Officer of Health, deaths of paupers belonging to the rural district in the workhouse at Totnes being added. It deserves notice in reading this table that it relates to a period just following on a severe epidemic of scarlet fever. Births. Deaths. Deaths in 1st j Year of. Acre, i Deaths from Year. £ Rate per 1,000 Population. CD rO £ Rate per 1,000 Population. CD |Z. jg a o CD P-) * © U1 <Sj CD CD O in Diphtheria. rfcjD O O CJD O C 1 5 CD CD .2 1876 __ 267 15-7 46 _ _ 3 7 _ l 8 4 11 1877 458 26-9 262 15‘4 32 7-0 - - 3 - - 9 4 10 1878 448 2G-3 285 16 • 7 51 11-4 - - - - 9 6 7 6 1879 53 C 3L5 317 18-G 58 10-8 - 3 7 - 2 10 6 11 1880 491 28-9 300 17 • G 53 10-8 - 2 3 2 10 13 10 7 Average - 483 28-4 286 1G ■ 8 48 lO'O '•00 ■09 ■23 ■02 • 20 •54 •36 > •53 Standard rural dis- tricts, during same period. 28-7 14-2 10-1 •03 ■28 •23 •19 • 35 *22 •48 ■39 v / ) Rates per 1,000 population per annum. Q 4545. Wt. 16339. A