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15
SECTION V.—On the Diseases and Deaths in the Practice of the Public
Medical Institutions of St. Giles's in 1861.
Statistical data on the amount and nature of the sickness that came under
treatment in the practice on the Workhouse and Bloomsbury Dispensary are
given in the tables which follow. The figures tell their own story without
long comment. It is essential, however, to warn against erroneous conclusions
that might be drawn from the mere inspection of these tables as to the
prevalence of some diseases. Thus the pauper medical practice always exhibits
with disproportionate prominence any disease that is affecting the neighbourhood
in which the Workhouse stands: children's diseases and chronic lung:
diseases for example, that prevail in the poor parts of South St. Giles's and
in the common lodging houses. An instance of the unexpected degree to
which the Workhouse practice is affected by locality was afforded in 18G1 by
the cases of measles and scarlatina. In the whole vear only 33 cases of
scarlatina were treated by the medical staff of the Workhouse, while 227 ca es
of measles came under observation. But, from its mortality being double
that of measles, we may infer that scarlatina affected quite as many persons in
the district as a whole. And at the Bloomsbury Dispensary 65 cases of
scarlatina stand on the books in 1861, while there were only 20 cases of
measles. The truth is that the epidemic of measles culminated about Church
Lane, that of scarlatina in the Coram Street neighbourhood.
The figures of these tables are more usefully to be compared with the experience
of the same institutions in previous years. At the Bloomsbury Dispensary
there was still a slight increase above the high number of patients relieved in
former years. Including casualties (which have not been reckoned in former
reports) no fewer than 5357 persons received medical and surgical aid in 1861,
the average attendance of patients being 440 per week. And how the
Dispensary is appreciated by the poor around it is further illustrated by
the fact above quoted, that it gave twice the aid in the Coram Street
epidemics that was given by the Workhouse.

It is no unimportant matter that in many cases this charity stops the
begining of pauperism by holding out its hands to a stricken family who must
otherwise go to the parish for medical aid.
The number of new cases admitted into the Parish Infirmary in 1861
was higher by 128 than the average of the four preceding years. Yet the
mortality was only 19½ per cent. of the new cases, instead of being 24 per
cent., which had been the ordinary number of deaths in the four former years.
Apparently therefore the cases treated in the infirmary were less serious than
usual in their character.—Persons visited at their own homes in 1861
numbered 1865, or very closely the same as usual. They died at the rate of
14 per cent., while the average of deaths in this department of the