Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the North District, comprising the Parish of St. Mary Stratford-le-Bow
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any time we may be face to face with the alarming conditions of 1896.
Even though hospital accommodation cannot at once follow notification,
yet it is demonstrable that the bringing of knowledge of the
existence of measles to the sanitary authority will produce good
results, and doubtless lead indirectly, if not directly, to saving many
young lives.
" Desirable as it is that the principle of providing hospital accommodation
for notifiable diseases should be preserved, yet with the
circumstances of 1896 before us I feel inclined to modify my former
opinion that notification and hospital accommodation for measles
must make their debut together. Doubtless years will elapse before
the hospital accommodation could be provided, even supposing that
the Legislature were to sanction the necessary expenditure. That
sanction, however, will take longer to acquire than the buildings
themselves, on account of the differences of opinion which exist
among experts on the subject. It seems to me that with the figures
before us of the prevalence of this disease, which was the only one in
1896 in Bow which showed an excessively epidemic tendency, the
objections to notification and hospital accommodation will be greatly
weakened."
The following is Bow's record since 1880:—
1880 | 11 | 1890 | 46 |
1881 | 19 | 1891 | 10 |
1882 | 23 | 1892 | 21 |
1883 | 28 | 1893 | 8 |
1884 | 6 | 1894 | 57 |
1885 | 28 | 1895 | 25 |
1886 | 27 | 1896 | 62 |
1887 | 22 | 1897 | 12 |
1888 | 31 | 1898 | 38 |
1889 | 3 |
On May 26th, I submitted the following report to the Sanitary
Committee;—