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
Kensington 1880
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]
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But the conditions that were so favourable to infantile life in respect
of diarrhoea in 1878, were very unfavourable to life, both in the
young and in the aged, in respect of another class of diseases, viz.,
the pulmonary, the mortality from which throughout the year was
excessive, as it always is in cold and wet seasons.
These and like circumstances must be kept steadily in view if
we would draw sound conclusions from a high or a low rate of
prevalence of this or that disease, or class of diseases, especially in
relation to the sanitary condition of a district.
Subject to corrections for climatic conditions, and for high rates
in previous years, the concurrence of a low general death-rate with
a low zymotic rate furnishes just grounds for satisfaction; and as
the general and the zymotic rates were both below the average in
1880, to that satisfaction we are fairly entitled.
It need hardly be said that a persistently high rate of mortality
from zymotic diseases is always a subject for serious consideration;
but, as we shall see in due course, Kensington has hitherto been
in the happy position of having a death-rate from these diseases
much below that of the Metropolis generally.
The subjoined table sets out necessary particulars of the mortality from the principal zymotic diseases in 1880, together with the decennial average, &c.:—
| Diseases. | Sub-districts. | In Hospital. | Totals. | Totals in 1880. | Decennial Average. | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Town. | Brompton. | (uncorrected). | (corrected). | ||||
| Small-pox | 1 | 2 | 8 | 11 | 22 | 33.7 | 38.7 |
| Measles | 74 | 1 | .. | 75 | 60 | 65.4 | 75.2 |
| Scarlet Fever | 69 | 14 | 22 | 105 | 51 | 66.5 | 76.4 |
| Diphtheria | 21 | 1 | .. | 22 | 27 | 17.2 | 19.7 |
| Whooping Cough | 75 | 20 | ... | 95 | 93 | 83.6 | 96.1 |
| Typhus Fever | 1 | 3 | .. | 4 | 37.7 | 43.3 | |
| Enteric Fever | 17 | 7 | .. | 24 | 14 | ||
| Simple continued Fever | 4 | 1 | .. | 5 | 8 | ||
| Diarrhoea | 111 | 17 | .. | 128 | 71 | 123.4 | 141.3 |
| 373 | 66 | 30 | 469 | 347 | 427.5 | 491.3 | |
From the above table we learn that the deaths from scarlet
fever and diphtheria were in excess of the corrected decennial
average, that the deaths from measles and whooping cough were
average, and that the deaths from small-pox, fever, and diarrhoea
were below average.
The deaths from these zymotic diseases were 122 more than
in 1879, 104 fewer than in 1878, and 22 below the corrected
decennial average. As usual, the deaths in the Brompton sub-