London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Finsbury 1913
Annual report on the public health of Finsbury for the year 1913
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Enteric Fever, 1901-1913.
| Year. | No. of cases notified. | No. of Deaths. | Case Mortality. No. of Deaths per 100 casts notified. | No. of Cases per 10,000 of Population. | No. of Deaths per 10,000 of Population. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1901 | 65 | 11 | 16.9 | 6.4 | 1.08 |
| 1902 | 77 | 9 | 11.7 | 7.7 | 0.9 |
| 1903 | 47 | 11 | 23.4 | 4.7 | 1.1 |
| 1904 | 40 | 8 | 20.0 | 4.1 | 0.8 |
| 1905 | 42 | 9 | 21.4 | 4.3 | 0.9 |
| 1906 | 44 | 14 | 31.8 | 4.6 | l.4 |
| 1907 | 22 | 2 | 21.0 | 2.3 | 0.2 |
| 1908 | 41 | 12 | 29.2 | 4.4 | 1.3 |
| 1909 | 15 | 3 | 20.0 | 1.6 | 0.3 |
| 1910 | 28 | 4 | 14.3 | 3.1 | 0.4 |
| 1911 | 74 | 9 | 12.2 | 8.4 | 10.2 |
| 1912 | 5 | 1 | 20.0 | 0.58 | 0.11 |
| 1913 | 15 | 0 | 0.0 | 1.7 | 0.0 |
All the cases were removed to hospital, and the diagnoses were
confirmed in every instance.
Sources of Infection. In two cases there was reason to
believe that the infection was derived from carrier cases. In one
such case, a woman had enteric fever in 1908, and moved into
Finsbury in 1913, to live with her mother. Shortly after her
arrival, her brother and sister were both notified to be suffering
from typhoid fever. The urine and faeces of the presumed
carrier were bacteriologically examined, and the faeces were reported
still to contain the typhoid germs 5 years after the original
attack.
For the rest of the cases no definite source was found, though
there was reason to believe that they probably had contracted
typhoid by eating fouled mussels, watercress or ice cream.