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7
Public Health in Retrospect
1859-1959
In previous Annual Reports I have referred to reports made by
my prodecessors one hundred years ago, and the following information
has been extracted from a Report by Dr. Connor, Medical Officer of
Health for the Battersea Parish in 1859.
The Population of Battersea in 1859 was probably about 18,500
Persons as at the census in 1851, the figure was 10,560, whilst the
census of 1861 showed it to have risen to 19,852 (Population 1959—
108,500).
Deaths registered in Battersea in 1859 numbered 394 (194 males,
200 females) 14 in excess of 1858, and 35 more than the corrected
average of the three preceding years. (Deaths 1959—1,328 (657 males,
671 females with a rate of 11.63 per 1,000 population. The comparable
rate for 1858 would have been 21.3). Dr. Connor states— "This excess
is, I apprehend, in a great measure due to three causes—the continuance
of the epidemic Scarlet Fever that occurred in November, 1858, the
increased prevalence of Hooping-cough and Diarrhoea, and the unusual
coldness of portions of the past year, which is attested by an increased
mortality resulting from diseases of the respiratory organs ".
"The mortality amongst children between birth and 10 years of
age has, I am pleased to state, rather diminished during the past year,
166 being the number registered against 174 in 1858; still, however,
the number in 1859 is very large, and indicates the persistent operation
of the much to be deplored cause alluded to in my last Annual Report."
(This reference in the 1858 Annual Report was to "a crowded industrial
population, engaged principally in factory and field labour, and the
employment of women in these occupations, the majority of whom are
mothers.")
During 1859, 97 infants under one year of age died, and, with the
number of births being 685, this gave an infant mortality rate of 141.61
per 1000 live births, compared with 44 infant deaths in 1959 and a rate
of 21.67.

Dr. Connor concludes his Report—"every means are being employed,
not only to rid the sub-district of all nuisances known or
suspected of engendering or aggravating disease, but to gradually introduce
such sanitary reforms as cannot fail to greatly benefit the parish,
if not to place it ultimately (abounding, though it does, in manufactories
of every kind) amongst the healthiest of the metropolitan suburbs
similarly circumstanced."