HH62/1/ABERD/61

Transcription

[Page] 60

population, and death-rate, with the average death-rate in
each parish, during the ten years from 1861 to 1870:-

TABLE A.

[Table inserted]

*Quoad sacra parishes.

The following Table is the death-rates during the last
ten years:-

TABLE B.
DEATH RATES DURING EACH OF THE TEN YEARS PREVIOUS TO 1891.

[Table inserted]

GENERAL ACCOUNT OF THE SANITARY STATE OF THE
DISTRICT. -The general sanitary condition of the Turriff
District resembles closely that of Alford and Huntly. The
same defects from a sanitary standpoint exhibit themselves
as in these districts. I would beg to refer to my remarks
in the Aberdeen and Ellon Districts Reports on the condi-
tion of the cottar houses and farm-servants' sleeping apart-
ments, which may be taken as more or less applicable to all
the districts in the county.
There are four villages in the district - Fyvie, Cumines-
town, Garmond, and New Byth. Garmond stands in need

[Page] 61

of a new water supply. Samples from four of the wells
were analysed by Mr. Jamieson, the city analyst, and found
suspicious.
Cuminestown was formed some years ago into a special
water district. An increased supply is now being got for
the village. The drainage is not good, and will require
early attention.
With regard to Fyvie, neither the drainage nor the
water supply can be said to call for attention meanwhile.
In New Byth the water supply is defective, and an in-
creased supply is under consideration.

NOTIFICATION ACT. - The Notification Act is not in
force for the district, and there is no hospital provision as
yet made by the Local Authority for the treatment of in-
fectious disease.
There is at Fyvie an excellent cottage hospital, built and
endowed by the late Mrs. Gordon of Fyvie, part of which,
when required, is used for the treatment of infectious cases
from this parish. The consent of the managers might be
secured by the Local Authority for the use of the hospital.
A small cottage hospital erected at Turriff itself would com-
plete the equipment of the district.
The necessity for hospital accommodation is very greatly
felt in connection with the unmarried male servants at farm
steadings. If one of them is seized with infectious disease,
a great deal of trouble is often experienced if there is no
hospital to which the patient may be sent. Again, if an in-
fectious disease breaks out in a two-roomed cottar house,
one room of which is sometimes uninhabitable, isolation is
impossible, and without hospital provision the disease must
be spread through the family, causing, occasionally, the death
of one of the members, and involving often much expense
and trouble. In many of these cases, too, the nursing is not
very efficient; nor are the conditions of the house itself such
as to give the patients the best chance of life.
There is further the general consideration which forms
the strongest reason for the existence of fever hospitals,
viz., the power of dealing promptly with first cases, and so
being able to check what might otherwise spread and lead
to an epidemic. For an illustration of this I would refer to
the effect of hospital isolation in the outbreak of scarlet fever
at Newhills. (See report on the Aberdeen District.) In the
Ellon District, also, the prompt removal of patients to Hospital
has undoubtedly been the means, in a number of cases, of
checking the spread of disease. People soon learn to