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 1880

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel]

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8
Dr. William Farr, F.R.S., in a most valuable and instructive
letter* addressed to the Registrar-General, and published in the
supplement to the 35th Annual Report of that officer, directs attention
to the difference in the mortality in the healthy districts of the country,
and that of England, and of the Liverpool District, which serves to
represent the most unfavourable sanitary conditions, where out of the
same number born, 400,370, nearly half of the number born die in the
five years following their birth. This is 284,960 in excess of the
deaths in the healthy Districts.

Table: TABLEShowing out of 1,000,000 children born alive (1) in the healthy Districts, (2)in All England, and(3)in the District of Liverpool, the numbers dying under5years of age by 11 groups of causes.

TABLE

Showing out of 1,000,000 children born alive (1) in the healthy Districts, (2)in All England, and(3)in the District of Liverpool, the numbers dying under5years of age by 11 groups of causes.

Healthy District?.England.Liverpool District.
Deaths from all causes175,410263,182460,370
Total Zymotic Diseases49,76187,099171,009
1. Small FoxC023,3315,175
2. Measles5,25711,50725,514
3. Scarlet Fever11,37317,95926,818
4. Diphtheria4,1842,4253,395
5. Hooping Cough9,65014,42432,551
6. Typhus (with Enteric ifc Common Fever)2,8075,4019,297
7. Diarrhcea and Dysentery9,35420,34451,911
8. Cholera3991,1294,255
9. Other Zymotic Diseases6,13510,57912,093
10. Scrofula and Tubes5,3358,11511,694
11. Consumption2,6564,4695,116

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*This letter extends to 82 pages, and contains remarks on epidemic diseases in
general, and matters which relate to the increase and decrease of population; the
relation between death rates and birth rates; the effects of density of population on
health ; the beneficial results arising to the Army and Navy from the operation of
the Contagious Diseases Act; the history of syphilis, &c.