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
London County Council 1911
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for London County Council]
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69
Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
| Metropolitan borough. | No. of persons accommodated. | Metropolitan borough. | No. of persons accommodated. |
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(a) No shelter maintained by borough council. In the case of Holborn 3 persons were accommodated in the
Finsbury Borough Council's shelter.
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| 4 | |||||
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| 15 | |||||
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| 5 |
Hat Plague.
Towards the end of 1910 special attention was directed by the Local Government Board to the
possibility of plague being spread by the agency of rats, and Dr. Thomas, the medical officer of health
of Stepney, in December of that year asked the managers of all the wharves in Stepney to communicate
with him immediately if dead rats were observed in any number on the wharf premises.
In June, 1911, Dr. Thomas received information that dead rats had been found at Middleton's
wharf. Four of the rats had died. One was in a moribund condition, and was killed. Three of the
dead rats were sent to the Local Government Board for bacteriological examination, and it was
reported that two of them had died from pneumonic plague. The third was in a state of advanced
decomposition and could not be examined. Four days later six more dead rats were found, one of
them too decomposed to touch. Of the five sent for examination two were deemed to have died from
pneumonic and one from bubonic plague. The remaining two, owing to decomposition, could not be
examined. The Public Health Committee of the Stepney Borough Council at once made arrangements
for rats to be caught and examined, and issued a circular to medical practitioners asking that
information of suspicious enlargement of glands occurring in the course of their practice might be
communicated to the medical officer.
It was thought possible that the disease amongst rats might spread by way of the County
Council's sewers. The Public Health Committee of the London County Council, therefore, arranged
for rats to be caught and sent for examination to the London School of Tropical Medicine. During
the course of the inquiry, which lasted from July to October, 119 rats were caught and sent to Dr.
H. B. Newham for examination. Not one rat, however, was found to be infected, and the work was
discontinued.