[Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C.

  • Barnsley (England : Unitary authority). Rural District Council.
Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Report 1899] / Medical Officer of Health, Barnsley (Union) R.D.C. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    As there were 41 deaths among infants under 12 months of age, the infant death-rate was at the rate of 145-39 for every thousand births, a rather smaller proportion than that of 1898, and also less than that of even the Rural Districts in the West Riding during that year. II.—The deaths from the principal zymotic diseases were 18 in number, and at the rate of 2-63 per thousand persons living, or decidedly higher than last year, mainly owing to an outbreak of measles at Cudworth m November and December. Of these deaths, 6 were from Measles, all in Cudworth ; 10 from Diarrhoea, of which 8 were m Cudworth, and 2 in (Mrlton ; and 2 from Typhoid Fever in Woolley and Notton. There were none from Small-pox, Diphtheria or Whooping Cough. During the year 37 notifications of cases of Infectious Disease, coming under the Notification Act, were received. Each case was promptly visited, and full particulars obtained about the sanitary conditions under which it occurred, the probable source from which the infection had been derived, and the amount of risk there was of the disease being con- veyed to other persons. Steps were taken for the removal of any sanitary defect that was discovered, the schools attended by the children in the house were warned if there was any danger of their conveying the disease to their school fellows, and in the case of Scarlet Fever or Typhoid Fever, where there were no sufficient facilities for the isolation of the patient, removal to the Kendray Hospital was advised and urged. When the patient had been removed to the Hospital, or had otherwise ceased to be a source of infection, the house was disinfected by means of a portable spraying machine, a solution of Formaline or of Perchloride of Mercury being used for the purpose, instead of the uncertain and otherwise objectionable sulphur fumes formerly used. Scarlet Fever was reported in every month throughout the year. There were 29 cases in all, of which 19 were in Cud- worth, 4 in Carlton, 3 in Billingley, 2 in Woolley, and i in Stainbro’. Fortunately we were able to secure the removal to the Kendray Hospital of 20, or nearly 70 per cent, of the cases (68'96), aFd it is probable that to this isolation of the great majority of the cases we owe it, that, notwithstanding the frequent fresh importation of the disease from other sanitary districts, it never became a serious epidemic, and