London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
View report page
Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Lewisham 1903
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Lewisham]
This page requires JavaScript
Table 22.
Attack rates from the Principal Infectious Diseases per 1000 of the population for the ten Wards and the whole Borough for the year 1903.
| Disease. | WARDS. | Whole Borough | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Church | Manor | South | Blackheath | Lewiaham Village | Lewisham Park | Brockley | Catford | Forest Hill | Sydenham | ||
| Small Pox | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | – | 0.05 | – | 0.00 |
| Scarlet Fever | 1.66 | 4.44 | 2.70 | 2.80 | 1.96 | 4.25 | 2.40 | 5.43 | 2.47 | 2.57 | 3.28 |
| Diphtheria | 3.02 | 4.44 | 1.08 | 3.39 | 3.64 | 1.12 | 1.42 | 1.25 | 0.99 | 1.32 | 1.83 |
| Enteric Fever | 0.15 | 0.43 | — | 0.29 | 0.35 | 0.37 | 0.17 | 0.29 | 0.16 | 0.53 | 0.31 |
| Erysipelas | 0.60 | 0.56 | 0.18 | 0.44 | 0.77 | 0.44 | 0.44 | 0.51 | 1.04 | 0.56 | 0.60 |
| Puerperal Fever | — | — | — | — | 0.14 | — | — | 0.18 | — | 0.03 | 0.05 |
| Total | 5.41 | 9.88 | 3.96 | 6.92 | 6.87 | 6.19 | 4.44 | 7.68 | 4.73 | 5.04 | 6.09 |
Return Cases.—Of the 548 cases of Scarlet Fever and
Diphtheria removed to hospital, 53 were considered "Return
Cases," i.e. new cases which occurred in a house within a few
days of the return of a patient from hospital. Twelve of these
cases referred to Diphtheria, and 41 to Scarlet Fever.
It was found on investigation that although the first
patient had been retained in hospital for several weeks, there
was good reason to believe that the secondary cases were due to
infection conveyed by the home-coming patient.
Most of our patients are received at the Park hospital, the
Medical Superintendent of which has always been most willing
to give me every information in regard to return cases. I have
every reason to believe that the greatest possible supervision