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
St Pancras 1914
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras, London, Borough of]
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The table below shows the total infantile mortality and that from congenital, intestinal, pulmonary and certain zymotic causes, during a series of 9 years contrasted with certain meteorological records taken at Camden Square, N.W., indicating the severity of the summers as regards heat and dryness and the severity of the winters as regards coldness : —
| Year. | Maximum monthly earth temperature taken at Camden Sq. at 4 ft. 0 in. depth. | Rainfall (luring the third quarter. Inches. | Lowest mean weekly temperature recorded duriug the year. | Rate of Infantile Mortality. | Deaths under one year of age. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Injury at Birth, Atelectasis, Congenital Malformations, Premature Birth, Atrophy, Debility and Marasmus. | Diarrhoea and Enteritis. | Bronchitis 1 nil Pneumonia. | Measles. | Whooping Cough. | |||||
| 1905 | 5.65 | 135.7 | 159 | 144 | 15 | ||||
| 131.1 | 199 | J8 | |||||||
| 57.8 | 3.77 | 113.8 | 198 | 75 | 150 | 33 | |||
| 115.0 | 221 | 94 | 11 | 31 | |||||
| 7.43 | 23.4 | 211 | 74 | 101 | |||||
| 213 | 52 | 106 | 42 | ||||||
| 204 | 17 | ||||||||
| 5.64 | 23.7 | 175 | 32 | 13 | |||||
| 1913 | 58.0 | 5.43 | 99 1 ( 92.'8)* | 177 | †95 | 12 | |||
| 59.3 | 4.50 | 32.4 | 95.9 ( 92.1)* | 153 | 92 | 8 | 23 | ||
* The figures in brackets are corrected figures (see Note above),
† The figures prior to 1913 are for " Diarrhoea and Dysentery."
It will be seen that the rate of infantile mortality has tended to vary in
direct proportion to the 4 foot earth temperature, and (to a less extent) to the
the amount of rainfall. The mortality in the latter years in the table is distinctly
lower than in the earlier years with corresponding earth temperatures, and
this is particularly noticeable in the case of 1914. It seems reasonable to
ascribe this to a betterment in the conditions under which the infant population
lives.
No connection between infant mortality from bronchitis and pneumonia and
cold weather can be deduced from the table.
Table 5 on page 125 shows the infantile mortality rates for 1914 of England
and Wales, the County of London, the several Metropolitan Boroughs, and
the 30 large towns with a population exceeding 125,000.