HH62/2/SUTHER/21

Transcription

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Tongue only 4·3 per cent.; while Rosehall, Scourie, Loth, and Rogart
did not contribute any proportion of its dead under the age of
5 years.
Considering that the death rate in children is reckoned a most
delicate indicator of healthiness or otherwise, the parishes and
districts which have high death rates must have some accountable
causes for such sad results.

MORTALITY AS TO DISEASES MOST PREVALENT.
In this respect it is only possible to give details for one year (1891)
as no regular returns were made before then, but the facts for other
years will, I hope, shortly be in my possession.

DISTRIBUTION OF DISEASES.
MORTALITY AS TO DISEASES MOST PREVALENT.
TABLE OF DEATHS FROM TUBERCULAR & RESPIRATORY DISEASES.

[Table Inserted]

Tubercular Disease caused 11 out of the 31 deaths which took
place in Kildonan in 1891, or 35·4 per cent., while Tongue follows
close with 30·4 per cent.; Stoer, usually near the top in every list of
this kind, is 3rd with 18·4 per cent.; and Dornoch and Golspie have
a low percentage; while Durness contributed no dead from Phthisis
The figures vary with the parishes as with the county from yea[r]
to year, and it will be interesting to look forward to the time whe[n]

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detailed statistics will be available for each parish and district thereof
- during the years between 1855 and 1891.
Respiratory Diseases (not counting Phthisis, though it chiefly
affects Respiratory organs) caused 33 deaths, of which 10 were in
children under 5, and are ranked in order from Rogart at top of list
with its proportion of 28·5 per cent. of its dead put into their graves
by Respiratory Disease in 1891; after a considerable interval comes
Kinlochbervie with 18·1 per cent.
Dornoch and Durness have a low proportion, while Rosehall, in
1891, had none of its inhabitants removed by Respiratory Disease.
Indeed, in Rosehall, all of the 9 died over 60 years of age.
Cancerous Disease occurred in Bonar and caused 4 deaths. In
Dornoch 3, Kildonan, Loth, and Rogart 2 each. Stoer, Clyne,
Golspie, Lairg, and Tongue had 1 each registered as dead from this
disease.
Unclassed Diseases as of Stomach, Bowel, Liver, and Kidney, &c.,
caused 32 deaths, and of these 14 were in children under 5 years -
one of whom was supposed to have been over-laid, but like in many
other deaths in children no medical certificate was given as the case
was not investigated.
19 out of 345 deaths were uncertified and uninquired into in 1891,
and this is not in itself conducive to the increase of attention or the
seeking of skilled advice to people who may be ill of disease - perhaps
curative if treated in time and with skill.
Other diseases such as Influenza may be mentioned. 2 deaths
from it occurred in each of the parishes of Clyne, Creich, and Rogart,
with 1 in Lairg. No deaths in other parishes from Influenza.
After thus giving summaries and details of the CASE as it exists,
the query arises, is there still to be a continuity of all these causes of
death, or will the remedies known by medical science stop their
increase or prevent the occurrence of those that, in other places, have
been found capable of prevention?
Many of them (as will, I hope, be willingly conceded when, in the
next part of report, the question of the causes contributing to these
results is considered) do "depend upon or have been influenced by
conditions capable of removal or mitigation."
There is a connection between some of the diseases and their
environment; and the soil or conditions of subsistence for their
spread has been shown from my description of the case to be largely
calculated to contribute to disease.
In concluding my statement of the Diagnosis of the sanitary
state of this county, it must not be supposed that I fail to
recognise or appreciate its good points. With these I am well
acquainted; but inasmuch as an artist, in making pictorial
representations of diseased states, must be faithful in delineat-
ing the blotches, disfigurements, warts, and all excrescences
which mar the beauty or injure the health of his subject; so, in
making a pen-portrait of this county's condition, I have felt bound to