Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]
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scarcely think it can depend to any great extent on atmospheric
changes, as the wave periods for all England are
longer, each having lasted for 6 or 7 years. Again, the
epidemic of 1877-78 formed in the Metropolis, the termination
of a six year period, evidently arising from the extremely
small mortality that occurred in 1873, 1874 and 1875. The
oscillation therefore, appears to me to be partly caused by
the larger number of persons susceptible to the disease who
are alive in a given number of the population at one time
than at another; whilst the number of cases and deaths
depends to a very great extent on the proportion amongst the
population of unvaccinated or badly vaccinated persons, as
compared with those who are protected by proper vaccination
and re-vaccination. This part of the subject will be discussed
in another part of the Report.
TABLE I.
Years. | Deaths per 1,0011,000. | Years. | Deaths per 1,000,000. | Years. | Deaths per 1,000,000. | Years. | Deaths per 1,000,000. |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1838 | 1762 | 1849 | 226 | 1860 | 316 | 1870 | 295 |
1839 | 344 | 1850 | 213 | 1871 | 2413 | ||
1840 | 673 | 1851 | 461 | 1861 | 76 | 1872 | 538 |
1852 | 483 | 1862 | 121 | ||||
1841 | 561 | 1863 | 693 | 1873 | 34 | ||
1842 | 188 | 1853 | 88 | 1874 | 16 | ||
1843 | 224 | 1854 | 270 | 1864 | 182 | 1875 | 22 |
1844 | 887 | 1855 | 403 | 1865 | 216 | 1876 | 211 |
1856 | 211 | 1866 | 454 | 1877 | 719 | ||
1845 | 438 | 1867 | 435 | 1878 | 396 | ||
1846 | 121 | 1857 | 58 | ||||
1847 | 435 | 1858 | 92 | 1868 | 193 | 1879 | 126 |
1848 | 720 | 1859 | 420 | 1869 | 86 | 1880 | 129 |
The mean annual death rate will be better shown by
adding together the death rates in each epidemic period and
dividing the product by the number of years contained in
each. This has been done in the following table, which
shows that with the exception of 1838-40 and 1868-72, there
has been a much closer average mortality from this disease
than might have been expected,