[Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, Reading County Borough.

  • Reading (England). County Borough Council.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: [Report 1925] / Medical Officer of Health and School Medical Officer of Health, Reading County Borough. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    16/92 (page 14)
    TABLE II. Period. Birth rate. Death rate.* Infant mortality. Death rate from pulmonary tuberculosis. 1874-83 (average) 36.5 18.1 131.6 1.99 1884-93 do. 32.0 16.5 127.9 1.47 1894-1903 do. 27.1 14.1 133.7 1.13 1904-13 do. 22.7 12.1 99.2 1.01 1914 20.1 12.0 88.5 1.09 1915 19.8 13.8 82.0 1.13 1916 19.3 14.4 80.8 1.05 1917 15.4 14.2 98.6 1.41 1918 17.1 15.9 72.7 1.40 1919 16.7 11.9 68.4 0.89 1920 24.8 11.0 66.7 0.82 1921 20.4 10.7 60.2 0.88 1922 18.5 12.2 63.0 0.87 1923 18.3 11.1 51.6 0.99 1924 17.1 10.7 53.6 0.96 1925 16.07 11.12 56.3 0.79 * The death rates given are the crude death rates for each year. Table III. on page 15, shew show Reading compares with the rest of the country. CAUSES OF AND AGES AT DEATH. Each year the principal causes of death are found to arrange themselves into definite groups, the relationship of which to each other varies only a little from year to year. Organic heart disease, bronchitis and pneumonia, cancer, and tuberculous diseases appear in that order as the most frequent causes of death. Organic Heart Disease. As a cause of death, heart disease is most frequently the predominant evidence of old age. A certain number of cases causing eleven deaths during the past year occur in young persons and are usually the sequelae of rheumatism and less frequently of scarlet fever. The prevention of rheumatism and its more careful treatment would help to eliminate these unfortunate cases, which are often the cause of prolonged invalidity. For example, “ growing pains ” in children are usually evidences of rheumatism and serious cardiac conditions are traceable to this source. Growing pains, therefore, should not be regarded lightly but should receive appropriate care and treatment to avoid subsequent heart affections, lhe remaining cases, constituting over 90 per cent, of the total, are nearly all cases of cardiac degeneration, the result of advanced years. I he great majority had passed the age of 65 years or nearly approached that age. Closely associated with this cause of death is arterio¬ sclerosis mid cerebral haemorrhage. That “ a man is as old as his arteries ” is a succinct truth. Whether the affected arteries fail in the brain or in the heart itself only affects the manner of the end.