London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Willesden 1895

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Willesden]

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( 17 )
of age there were 505, being 46.6 per cent, of deaths.
As a gauge of the sanitary condition of a district,
the death rates of children under one and under five
years of age are regarded as important, and also the
death rate of typhoid fever. These are the three
most .mportant data. As regards children under
one year, the calculation is made with respect to the
number of births. Taking an average of ten years
throughout England and Wales this has been found
to be practically 150 per 1,000, which may be taken
therefore as a permissible standard, anything above
that being considered indicative of some insanitary
condition. With regard to children under five years
of age, the calculation is made in connection with
each 1,000 living under that age. The number of
children under five, including those under one year
of age, in our population would be 10,778, and the
permissible death rate on the same average of ten
years would be 63 per 1,000. Dividing the number
of deaths of children under one year, 373, by the
births, 2,469, we find the rate per 1,000 to be 151,
or only just over the permissible standard; again,
by dividing the deaths, 505, of children under five
years of age, by the number, 10,778, living under
that age, we get an average of 46.85, which is considerably
under the permissible standard. The
conditions with regard to typhoid fever are also
favourable, the death rate being 0.15 per 1,000 of
the population, the average rate of ten years throughout
the country being 0.32.