London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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St Giles (Camden) 1859

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]

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14
There appears some interest in knowing where the violent deaths have happened.
Including deaths from intoxication and delirium tremens under this head,
they have been as follows :—
A. Around Bedford Square 3
B. „ Russell Square 1
C. „ Coram Street 3
D. „ Blooms bury Square 6
E. „ Church Lane 3
F. „ Dudley Street 13
G. „ Short's Gardens 9
H. „ Northern Drury Lane 4
K. „ Southern Drury Lane 8
L. „ Lincoln's Inu Fields 3
Workhouse 0
Whole District 53
In the diagram to which I have before adverted, the chief results of the forego
ing inquiry are given in a form which appeals readily to the eye.
Having finished my account of the diseases and deaths of St. Giles's, I am desirous
to find place for a few words on the Births of 1859. The numbers in each quar
ter of the year, of each sex, and for each of our subdistricts are given in Table VI.
of the Appendix.
The tolal Births in St. Giles's in 1859 numbered seventeen hundred and twenty
nine. Though more numerous than in 1858, they continue to be materially below
the average of the ten preceding years. The chief rise from 1858 was found in
St. Giles's South. This was not due to any change in the admissions into the
Endell-street Hospital, for the number of women there delivered was about the
usual number for several years past. The increase in the births of St. Giles's Souih
in 1859 corresponds to the increase that has appeared in the death-rate of this district
in the same period. This might be held to furnish a corroboration of the
surmise previously made, that there has been no decrease in the population of that
subdistrict.
Unfortunately, however, in the present state of our registration laws, no safe
deduction as to the number of children actually born in a district can be founded
on the number whose births are registered. In Scotland every birth must be
recorded, or a penalty is incurred; for Ireland the same provision is made, in a bill
now before Parliament; but in England the present law leaves registration
optional only, and indeed prohibits it altogether, if it is not effected within
the first six months of a child's birth. Hence it is probable that the number
of registered births is only a fraction of those which actually take place;
and there is no security that this fraction shall not vary materially from one
year to another. (Appendix IX.)
Chapter V.— On the Diseases and Deaths of Public Inslitutions of St.Giles
in 1859.
The following table shows the prevalence and fatality of disease in the medical
practice of the workhouse, in the same manner as the similar tables of 1857 and
1858. A comparison of the three years may thus be so readily made that I shall
only add a very few words of comment : —
* 112 or 130; there are 18 cases against, which no sufficient entry is made in llie hospilal
books. Of this total number of children horn here, about 13 only thouId be reckoned a-i
belonging to St. Giles' Distiict.