[Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). County Borough Council.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1893] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/28 (page 4)
    In estimating the probable population, I have taken as usual the number of occupied houses as a basis. During the year 186 new houses were certified for occupation, and yet there are no more unoccupied than there were in 1892, a few old ones have been pulled down in Beckett’s Square and other places for street and market improvements, but as there is much overcrowding in many parts, it is not probable that these need be considered in the calculation. 1 have therefore taken the probable increase at five times the number of new houses occupied, viz., 930, or a little more than double the excess of births over deaths. This would make our population in 1893 t° have been about 37,630, and our death-rate 22.61 for every thousand persons living, or rather higher than for' 1892, but much lower than in 1891, and a little lower than the average for the preceding ten years. The births registered having been 1,538, or the largest number yet recorded, the birth-rate on the same population was 40.87, which is so nearly that of the census year as to make it fairly certain that there is no great error in the estimate. Of the deaths, 284 or 32.21 per cent, of the whole were amongst infants, being 18.46 per cent of the registered births. There were 428 deaths, or 48.63 per cent, of the whole, amongst children under five years of age. All these figures indicate a higher mortality than usual amongst young children, due in great measure to the deaths from Diarrhoea in the third quarter of the year. The seven principal zymotic diseases caused 181 deaths, or 4.80 per thousand persons living, and more than one-fifth of the whole, of which 3 were from Smallpox, 30 from Measles, 20 from Scarlet Fever, 3 from Diphtheria, 4 from Whooping Cough, 36 from Enteric or Typhoid Fever, and 76 from Diarrhoea. It will be seen that more than two-fifths of these deaths were due to the last-named disease, and there is one fact which it is well to record respecting the epidemic in Barnsley last year.