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
Islington 1911
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington, Metropolitan Borough of]
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153 [1911
ENTERIC FEVER.
There were 73 cases of Enteric Fever notified, of which 18 occurred in
the first quarter, 7 in the second, 24 in the third, and a like number in the
fourth.
Wales, in which it was 0-30 per 1,000.
In London it was also low, being 0.23 per 1,000, while in the Encircling Boroughs the cases and rates were as follows:—
| St. Pancras | 70 | 0.32 | |
| Stoke Newington | 6 | 0.12 | |
| Hackney | 51 | 0.22 | |
| Hornsey | 7 | 0.08 | |
| Finsbury | 80 | 0.91 | |
| Shoreditch | 22 | 0.20 | |
| Encircling Boroughs | 236 | 0.30 | |
The weekly incidence of the disease in 1911, together with the weekly
averages of the ten years preceding, is seen in the accompanying chart.
Hospital Isolation.— 56 of the 73 cases, or 76.7 per cent., were removed
to hospital for treatment, as against 17, or 23.3 per cent, who were treated at home.
Fatality.—As there were 12 deaths, the proportion of deaths to cases
was 17.2 per cent., which is 0.9 per cent, lower than in the preceding year.
It is thus seen that the disease still retains its fatal character, and, therefore,
everything of a preventive nature that can be adopted should be practised.
It is not, however, always easy to trace the origin of the disease, which at
times is exceedingly obscure; indeed, again and again inquiries have utterly
failed to discover it. There are many channels of infection, by which the germ
of the disease can be conveyed; and some of them are our foodstuffs, which,