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169
Hal l's extreme concern at the mortality rate in Hobarton was
shown to be quite justified by Mackin's thirty page pamphlet 11Report on
the Health and Sanitary Conditions of the Town and .Suburbs of Geelong
1856 which was reviewed in the July issue of the Au tralian Medical
Journal . Although Geelong ' s mortality rate was far less than that of
Hobarton, 26 .7 per 1000 as compared with 30 .0 per 1000 , Mackin still
cosidered it far too high and in excess of what was held to be the
standard of natural mortality, which is 2% of the population, and appealed
to the civic authorities and to the Public to take heeo . What then was
to be said of Hobarton where it was so much higher ? Hall hoped that at
least the citizens would take note of the opinions inthe sister colonies .
Like Hall, Mackin found that at least half the number of deaths were of
infants under five years of age , and that the high infant mortality rate
was mainly due to three preventab le causes :
undue exposure of the body
to heat and cold, unsuitable food and the employment of unskilled,
uneducated medical attention in the case of illness .
On September 1, Hall decided that the approach of the summer
months demanded that something more definite than writing and lecturing
be done to improve the sanitary situation.
He, therefore, addressed the
Mayor and Aldermen of the city personally by letter . He set out his
facts clearly and simply. 6 It had been proved statistically that
Hobarton was pre-eminent amongst cities for its excessive mortality;
in
1855 the Registrar-General of Hobarton, whose district included the
Police District of Hobart Town and the Police Sub-Districts of Brown 's
and the Huon Rivers , recorded 883 deaths out of a population of 26 ,095 .
. The mortality rate was therefore 34 per 1000. In the whole of England
and Wales th e mortality rate for 1855 was less than 23 per 1000 .
However, by a more precise analysis of the Hobarton register, the numb er
of deaths could be reduced to 775 or ab out 30 per 1000, which was still
greatly in excess of the aveage.
Local causes rather than personal
hab its were to blame , as could be proved by the fol lowing facts :
in the
Huon area, where the settlers ' homes, food and habits were inferior to
those in Hobarton, the mortality was 28 deaths out of a population of
about 3,000 peop le, that is 9 l/2 per thousand .
These people in the Huon,
though deficient in many necessities of life, at least breathed pure air
and had plenty of good water.
The mortality rate for similar types of
people in Hobart Town was double that in the Huon.
In the whole of
6
Quoted Daily News , September 2, 1856.