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
Whitechapel 1856
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel]
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7
The unhealthiness of a district is not so accurately shown by the total
number of deaths annually taking place in it, as by the number of deaths from
zymotic diseases ; for these diseases are usually considered as preventible, that
is, arising from causes which we have it in our power to remove. In
In order to show the relative amount of mortality in this and some of the other districts in London from zymotic diseases, and the proportion it bears to the total mortality, and the proportion of deaths from typhus fever to deaths from other epidemics, I have prepared the subjoined table:—
| Districts. | Population in 1851. | Deaths from all causes in 1855. | Deaths From Epidemics in 1855. | Deaths from Typhus Fever in 1855. | Proportion of Deaths from | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epidemics, to all causes. | Typhus, to all causes. | Typhus, to other Epidemics. | ||||||
| One in | ||||||||
| Kensington | 120,004 | 3042 | 553 | 104 | 5.5 | 29.2 | 5.3 | |
| Marylebone | 157,696 | 3818 | 627 | 66 | 6.1 | 57.7 | 9.5 | |
| Hackney | 58,429 | 1499 | 258 | 72 | 5.8 | 20.8 | 3.6 | |
| Clerkenwell | 64,778 | 1459 | 280 | 42 | 5.0 | 34.5 | 6.7 | |
| Shoreditch | 109,257 | 2985 | 660 | 147 | 4.5 | 20.3 | 4.5 | |
| St.George's East | 48,376 | 1244 | 298 | 45 | 4 2 | 27.6 | 6.6 | |
| Stepney | 110,775 | 2857 | 527 | 140 | 5.4 | 20.4 | 3.7 | |
| Bermondsey | 48,128 | 1214 | 297 | 70 | 4.1 | 17.3 | 4.2 | |
| Lambeth | 139,325 | 3328 | 642 | 120 | 5.2 | 27.7 | 5.3 | |
| Camberwell | 54,667 | 1361 | 264 | 34 | 5.1 | 40.0 | 7.7 | |
| Lewisham | 34,853 | 860 | 153 | 23 | 5.6 | 37.3 | 6.6 | |
| Whitechapel | 79,759 | 2459 | 469 | 130 | 5.3 | 18.8 | 3.6 | |
From the above table, it appears that the proportion of deaths from
epidemics to deaths from all causes is greatest in Bermondsey, the deaths being
one in 4.1, The proportion of deaths from typhus fever, to deaths from all
causes, is also greatest in Bermondsey, being one in 17.3; but the proportion of
deaths from fever to deaths from other epidemics, is less there than in Whitechapel,
Hackney, and Stepney, in which districts the proportion of deaths from typhus
to other epidemics is in the two former, one in 3.6, and in the latter one in 3.7.
A fact for which I was totally unprepared, is made manifest by the above
table, viz:—that the Hackney district, which has been considered one of the
healthiest, having a mortality of one in 51, is, as regards the mortality from
epidemics as unhealthy as the Whitechapel district, the former having a proportionate
mortality from these causes of one in 5.8, and the latter one in 5.3.
The sub-district of Dulwich, having in 1851, a population of 1362, forms
a striking contrast in its rate of mortality from epidemics to that of other districts.
Only ten deaths from epidemics, including one from typhus, were
registered in that sub-district during 1855.
It is perhaps not generally known that the ratio of births to deaths is
greater in the unhealthy than in the healthy districts; one death in 33 and one
birth in 28 occurring in the unhealthy, and one death in 56, and one birth in
42, in the healthy districts. The mortality, as the Registrar General remarks,