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 Giles (Camden) 1859
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]
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The Ten Subdivisions in the order of their Mortality from Miasmatic Diseases
of the Zymotic Class.
| Order of Sequence, 1859. | Locality of | Deaths from Miasmatic Diseasps in 1859. | Per 10,000 | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Miasmatic Diseases. | Small P x. | Measles. | Scarlatina. | Diphtheritis. | Whooping Cough. | Diarrhoea. | Coniinped Fever. | 1857 | 1858 | 1859 | ||
| lst. | B. Russell Square | 5 | - | - | - | 1 | 2 | 2 | - | 25 | 40 | 11 |
| 2nd. | A. Bedford Square | 8 | — | 1 | 4 | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | 36 | 28 | 22 |
| 3rd. | L. Lincoln's len Fids. | 7 | — | 1 | 1 | — | 3 | — | — | 56 | 32 | 28 |
| 4th, 5tb, 6th. | C. Coram Street____ | 29 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 5 | — | 4 | 2 | 27 | 55 | 45 |
| D. Bloomsbury Sqre. | 31 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 1 | 47 | 39 | 46 | |
| E. Ctnircb Lane | 25 | — | 7 | 7 | — | 2 | 6 | 1 | 65 | 66 | 48 | |
| 7th. | H. Nort. Drury Lane | 42 | 3 | 10 | 7 | — | 10 | 7 | 3 | 89 | 55 | 83 |
| 8th. to 9th. | G Short's Gardens | 60 | 7 | 9 | 11 | 1 | 10 | 12 | 6 | 98 | 53 | 91 |
| F. Dudley Street | 71 | 2 | 7 | 12 | 1 | 20 | 18 | 6 | 99 | 56 | 91 | |
| 10th. | K. Sout. Drury Lane | 65 | 6 | 9 | 14 | 1 | 16 | 8 | 7 | 11 | 41 | 128 |
| Workhouse Inmates | 4 | — | — | — | - | 1 | — | 3 | — | — | — | |
| Total District | 347 | 22 | 52 | 71 | 10 | 67 | 70 | 30 | 64 | 48 | 64 | |
A scrutiny of this table will show that several parts have improved since 1858 in
regard of these diseases, while others have retrograded to the standard of 1857.
One locality, that to the south of Great Queen-street, has had as many deaths
from these complaints as in the two preceding years put together. Deferring
for the present the consideration of smallpox, it will be noticed that measles
and scarlatina spread pretty uniformly over the district, while whooping-cough was
but little fatal in the northern half. Scarlatina prevailed steadily through the
four seasons, whereas measles was most rife in the second quarter, and whooping-cough
in the first six months of the year. Diarrhoea, of course occurring
almost wholly in the autumn, underwent its chief increase above the previous year
in the southern parts of St. Giles's, but also increased very strikingly in the streets
between the lines of Holborn and Great Russell-street, fever was fatal in all the
subdivisions, except in the two most open ones of Russell-square and Lincoln's-inn
Fields, but it nowhere approached an epidemic form.
With reference to the prevalence of zymotic disease in the southern Drury-lane
locality, though a lamentable increase of it cannot be denied, there is one consideration
to which weight should be attached before we venture to assert that the
material conditions of disease were augmented in that nighbourhood. For two
years that portion of our district had contrasted with its neighbours in respect of
zymotic diseases in a manner for which there appeared no explanation; it could not
be said that the lanes and alleys about Great Wild-street were in a condition specially
adapted to resist disease. But after a season of such immunity there is a
tendency, as I have before shown, for epidemic diseases to manifest greater virulence;
perhaps from there being then more persons without the protection conferred
by a previous attack of the disease. High as the death-rate of the locality in question
was for 1859, the average mortality from epidemics in the three years is only
brought up by this circumstance to that which has characterized the kindred subdivisions
to the north of Great Queen-street and around Short's Gardens.
As for Consumptive diseases, they appear to have been distributed in the several
parts of our district much in the usual manner. Here is shown the relative mor-