HH62/1/BANFF/7

Transcription

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in the Parish boundaries and the difficulty in obtaining the exact
extent embraced within the Royal and Police Burghs.
In Table I., p. 15, I have endeavoured to set forth, according
to information received (but subject to future revision), the acre-
age, population, and density of population (inclusive of Burghs)
of the different Parishes within the County.
The Returns issued by the Registrar-General give the popu-
lation of the Parishes and Registration Districts. The acreage
supplied for the census of 1881 by the Directors of the Ordnance
Survey (see Blue Book) gives the extent of the Parishes. The
Registration Districts and the Parishes, however, are in many
cases not co-terminous, consequently a difficulty arises - for
example, the Registration District of Seafield, which includes
portions of the Parishes of Rathven and Fordyce, and all the
extra burghal part of the Parish of Cullen, the Population is
given in the Registrar-General's Returns, but the acreage is not
stated anywhere that I have been able to find.
Vital Statistics. - From the Registrar-General's Returns for
the last ten years, I have compiled a Table (Table II., p. 16) of
the Birth and Death Rates of Banffshire, in order to compare
them with those for the whole of Scotland.
The figures there given for the small towns and the main-
land rural districts form perhaps the best bases of comparison,
because, in my calculations, I have been obliged to include both
burghal and rural populations.


(a) General Sanitary State.

In the District Reports reference has been already made in
general terms to this point, the time that has elapsed since I
entered on my duties, and the amount of information I have been
able to acquire, rendering anything more special out of the
question.
In these Reports reference was made to those conditions
which influence the health and sanitary state of a district.
These were roughly divided into natural and artificial.
Of the former, the most important are the meteorological
(including temperature, rainfall, and prevailing winds), the geo-
logical, and the physical. The two latter are mainly of import-
ance when taken in connection with the first.
The artificial conditions, however, embracing, as they do,
those belonging more particularly to the inhabitants, their occu-
pations, their dwellings and the surroundings thereof (including
site, water supply, drainage, and removal of refuse), the diseases
most commonly met with amongst them, and how far these dis-
eases are dependent on causes capable of removal by hygienic
measures, are the most important.
Judging generally from the vital statistics of Banffshire, as

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compared with those for the rest of the country (see Table II., p.
16), the sanitary state of the county would seem to be equal to,
if not above, the average.
The death rate, however, is no guide, or at most an uncertain
one, as to the health of a community, or the existence of insani-
tary conditions. We may have a low death rate, and still a large
amount of sickness, or we may have the opposite, depending on
the age constitution of the population, and other causes.
In many of the rural parishes, there is reason to believe that
the decrease of population is due to the migration from those dis-
tricts into the town and villages of young adults, leaving a resi-
dent population, belonging principally to the two extremes of life
amongst whom, naturally, the death rate is higher, and the birth
rate lower, than would be the case were all ages properly repre-
sented. Judging, on the other hand, from personal observation
and investigation, there are many things have struck me as cap-
able of improvement, and where the provisions of the Public
Health (Scotland) Act 1867 might be enforced with advantage to
the sanitary state of the district and the health of the inhabitants.
Notably is this the case with regard to many of the cottages, their
site, construction, and surroundings, both in rural districts and
villages, and it is to this point that I would beg especially to
refer at this time.
The Public Health (Scotland) Act, 1867, has been in force
nearly 25 years, but I fear that its provisions are not at all well
known. For example, Sect. 16 (a) provides that the word
"nuisance" shall include "any insufficiency of size, defect of struc-
ture, defect of ventilation, want of repair, or proper drainage, or
suitable water closet or privy accommodation, or cesspool, and
any other matter or circumstance rendering any inhabited house,
building, or premises or part therof injurious to the health of the
inmates, or unfit for human habitation or use." Again, Sect. 89
(2) provides that "if any house within the district be without a
proper supply of water at or near the same, the Local Authority
shall compel the owner to obtain such supply, and to do all such
works as may be necessary for that purpose."
I have little doubt that during the last twenty-four years
cottages have been built in the county which through ignorance
of the Act do not comply with the foregoing requirements in
many particulars. One most important point, not directly but
indirectly included in the foregoing, that I have noticed is
frequently ignored, is the site and exposure of the cottage. In
many cases, both in villages and rural districts, the existing
cottages are built on a slope - the back wall or one gable being
built into the slope of the ground, causing damp, which is one of
the most fruitful sources of dishealth, being, as it is, intimately
connected with the causation of Catarrh, Rheumatism, Neuralgia,
Phthisis, Diphtheria, and, according to some, Typhoid Fever.