HH62/45/375

Transcription

[Page] 25

Royal Infirmary. No certificates were required under the Public Health Acts.
Under the Factory and Workshops' Acts the District Committee appointed as
Inspectors the Chief Medical Officer and Sanitary Inspector. All of the Workshops
and most of the Factories have been visited, and the various points concerning them
registered.
Retail Bakehouses. - Those in operation in the District have been visited, and
found to be in a satisfactory condition, the statutory provisions as to lime-washing
having been attended to.
5. The new arrangement whereby accommodation is secured in the Perth Royal
Infirmary for patients suffering from infectious disease in the District has been fully
taken advantage of during the past year, 13 patients having been sent to Hospital.
The Medical Officer has no supervision of the management of the Perth Infirmary.
The portable Hospital belonging to the Highland District has not yet been required
to be used for Smallpox. For a short time it was lent to the Perth Infirmary
Directors for the accommodation of convalescent Scarlet Fever patients, but it was
shortly returned to its store-shed at Ballinluig, and is in readiness should it be
required in connection with the railway extension works.
6. As in previous years, energetic measures were adopted to prevent the out-
break or limit the spread of infectious diseases. The Assistant Sanitary Inspector
has been most assiduous in doing all that was possible to check these outbreaks, and
the results as shown by the large reduction in the number of reported cases of
infectious disease as compared with the previous year, as well as the entire absence of
Diphtheria, amply prove the nature of the work done.
Respiratory Diseases caused 17 deaths during 1897, as compared with 16 in
1896. Of these, 11 were in persons over 60 years of age and 1 in a child under 1 year.
Circulatory Diseases caused 19 deaths during 1897, as compared with the same
number in 1896. Of these, 15 occurred in persons over 60 years of age.
Tubercular Diseases caused 12 deaths during 1897, as compared with 16 in
1896. Of these, 12 deaths 8 were attributed to pulmonary consumption.
Nervous Diseases caused 17 deaths during 1897, as compared with 16 in 1896.
Of these 17 deaths 13 occurred in persons over 60 years of age.
Digestive Diseases caused 8 deaths during 1897, as compared with 10 in 1896.
Cancer and Malignant Diseases caused 14 deaths during 1897, as compared
with 11 in 1896.
Old Age was the cause of death in 59 instances, as against 40 in 1896.
Developmental Diseases caused 3 deaths during 1897, as compared with 10 in
1896.
Violence caused 5 deaths during 1897, as compared with 1 in 1896.
Zymotic Diseases caused 4 deaths during 1897, as compared with 7 in 1896.
Of these deaths 3 were caused by Whooping-Cough and 1 by Diarrhoea. The Zymotic
Death-rate was .322, as compared with .558 in 1896. The number of cases of infectious
disease notified during the past year was 72, as against 116 in 1896, showing a
satisfactory reduction.
Scarlet Fever. - No deaths were due to this disease in 1897, and the number
of cases reported was less than half of that in 1896. The disease broke out frequently
in various parts of the District, but prompt isolation was effectual in preventing its
spread to any extent. In one or two of the outbreaks there was almost conclusive
proof that the infection had been carried by tramps. There were 13 cases of Scarlet
Fever removed to Hospital from the District during the year.

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Enteric Fever. - No deaths were caused by this disease during 1897. Only two
mild cases of the disease were reported.
Diphtheria. - No death was caused by this disease in 1897, neither was any
case of the disease notified. This, taken along with the small number of cases of
Enteric Fever, is one of the best proofs that the sanitary condition of the District is
satisfactory.
Whooping-Cough caused 3 deaths during 1897. The disease was prevalent in
various parts of the District, the fatal cases occurring in the parishes of Blair-Atholl
and Dunkeld.
Diarrhoea caused 1 death during 1897, the same as in 1896.
Deaths in which the cause of death was uncertified, or insufficiently stated, were
20 in 1897, as compared with 14 in 1896. This number, though somewhat in excess
of that in 1896, is still very satisfactory when the difficulties in procuring certificates
in such a scattered District are taken into account.

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