HH62/1/FIFE/43

Transcription

[page] 42

In the statement regarding the mortality of the District, further
reference will be made to the origin and causes of certain diseases, and
to any conditions which might have been removed or mitigated.
In order to judge of the sanitary condition of a District, it is
necessary to know the rate of mortality from different classes of disease.
The mere death-rate per thousand of population is not sufficient, but in
addition we must have the death-rate of infants under 1 year to 1000
births, the death-rate of children from 0 to 5 years per 1000 of those
living at that age, the death-rate from zymotics and tubercular diseases.
These may be called the minimum requirements of a Report like this,
and the information needed for the construction of these rates is got
from (1) the Census returns, which give the numbers of the population,
and (2) Mortality returns form the local Registrars. I refer to these
matters, as the Committee has had so often before them the difficulties
experienced in getting the necessary data.
Tables of these various death-rates will be found at the end of this
Report, but, in addition, I have added a Table showing the "crude"
death-rates of the parishes in the District for 10 years. It is necessary
to state that these include burgh rates; as in the returns issued by the
Registrar-General, these are not separated from the rural districts rates.
The rates being calculated on the populations of parishes, which are
frequently small, are not altogether reliable, and vary much from year to
year.

DUNFERMLINE DISTRICT.
DEATH RATE IN VARIOUS PARISHES - 1881 TO 1890.

[table inserted]

In purely rural districts, a death-rate above 17 per 1000 is con-
sidered high, and indicates that much sanitary work has to be done to
reduce it to the normal.
In this Table, 43 per cent. of the total rates are above the standard,
and in some cases enormous death-rates are indicated. The causes of
these excessive rates could only be ascertained by searching the Regis-
trars' books, as they are not to be found in the Abstract Reports of the
Registrar-General.

[page] 43

MORTALITY STATISTICS FOR 1891.

In Dunfermline District alone has it been possible to obtain the
necessary returns of births and deaths on which rates are calculated,
and in the appendix of this Report a complete statement is given.
The proportion of person to acre is calculated on the total area
and total population of the District.
The birth-rate is high, and the deaths under one year give a high
death-rate.
The total death-rate is also high, but the death-rate from zymotic
diseases is low.
The death-rate from phthisis is low, and in a District where phthisis
is supposed to be necessarily high, from the large number of miners in
the population.
In the Table of Deaths it will be seen that influenza caused fifteen.