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These rates are reasonably comparable as the proportion of women
aged 15 to 45 in the population has not altered greatly.
Deaths
Death Rate 1901-28.7 (This rate is an approximation based on the
aged constitution of the population in 1961 and therefore comparable with
that for l963. The actual rate for 1901 which applied to the population
as constituted at that time was 21.3)
Death Rate 1963 13.9
Infant Deaths
Infant Mortality Rate 1901 140.6
1963 10.9
The appalling rate for 1901 given above representing 533 actual
deaths of infants under 1 includes 20 suffocated by overlaying, between
Friday evening and Monday morning, due to the drunken condition of the
parents in most, if not all, cases, and 69 from Diarrhoea, mostly in
the summer and autumn. No infant deaths from either of these causes has
taken place in the last ten years.
The saving of infant lives demonstrated by these figures, and of
childrens lives referred to below, has been the most striking of all
the evidence of the improvement in the health of the population of
this country generally, and of this Borough in particular, where the
earlier rate was well above the national rate, and in recent years
usually below it.
Childhood deaths
In 1901 there were 371 deaths among children aged from 1 to 15
and in 1963 the corresponding number was 4 and for the same number of
children of these ages living in 1901 would have been about 17.
Causes of Death
Apart from a fall in the number of deaths from each recognised
cause (with the exception of cancer and coronary disease), the special
feature has been the near elimination as causes of death of Tuberculosis,
which was responsible for 270 deaths in 1901, of Alcoholism together
with cirrhosis of liver which accounted for 35 deaths, and of the
ordinary infectious diseases which were responsible for 182 deaths.
Infectious Diseases
When the Borough was formed in 1901 many infectious diseases now
of little serious import, were rampant and took a heavy toll of life,
not only directly but also indirectly, through the complications that
were frequent and the aftermath of ill health which they left behind.
This is now no longer the case, and normally these diseases have
little more than a nuisance value though from time to time they arise as a
cause of serious ill health and even of death.
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