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21
It should be mentioned that many of the number who have left
the Parish have gone to reside in adjacent parishes, and the particulars
of all such (known) cases have been eluly forwarded to the
Vaccination Officers of the respective districts. The Vaccination
Officer, moreover, keeps constantly before him the names of those
children of whose successful vaccination certificates have not been
received, and the result of his endeavours to have the Act complied
with is seen in the large number of certificates received from time
to time. Mr. Shattock concludes his report for 1871 with a hope
that, by a systematic application and enforcement of the new Act,
the number of children marked as " Left " will be greatly reduced
in the future, as the names of all children will be furnished to him ere
they reach the age of three months, and the parents will be served with
notices within one week after that date. I have dwelt somewhat
upon this subject because of its intrinsic importance, magnified
as that is in the minds of all reasonable persons by the frightful
mortality during the year from Small Pox—a disease the most
loathsome and, at the same time, the most controllable of those which
specially engage the attention of Sanitarians. How great a boon
to mankind this invaluable operation of vaccination is—how complete
its protective influence in the vast majority of cases ; and how
strong its power of favourably modifying Small Pox when that
disease supervenes, has already been shown.
SANITARY WORK.
Table W., (Appendix) comprises a general statement of the
Sanitary Work performed during the year. A brief notice of some
of the more important items will not be misplaced here. And foremost
among permanent Sanitary improvements may be reckoned the
abatement of nuisances arising from the keeping of pigs in the
Potteries, Notting Dale.
This district may be briefly described as a parallelogram, 236
yards long by 147 in width, having a superficial area of about six
acres, and containing a population of 1,100 persons, an average of
180 to the acre, the average in the entire parish being 71. At the
middle of the year there were probably as many pigs as human beings
in the place. The odour not so much from the pigs as from the
large quantities of stale and putrid wash—particularly at the boiling
hours—was offensive in the extreme, and was often and bitterly
complained of by the inhabitants of the surrounding district.
It having been affirmed that the health of the residents was good
and that there was no evidence to the contrary, it may be well to
state that upon enquiry I found there were 35 deaths in the district
in 1870, equivalent to an annual rate of mortality of 31 per 1000,
the rate in the whole parish being under 21. In 1871 the deaths
were 30, and the annual rate of mortality 27 per 1000, while in the
parish generally, it was under 19 per 1000. The deaths of children
under five years of ago were 63 per cent, of the deaths at all ages