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

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Battersea 1896

Report upon the public health and sanitary condition of the Parish of St. Mary, Battersea during the year1896

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189
protection against small-Pox attracted attention. It could be
inoculated, like the Small-Pox, from one person to another, but
unlike the latter it was stated to be not communicable by infection.
If it afforded protection against Small-Pox without spreading the
disease, opinion was evidently ripe for the substitution of the one
practice for the other, for inoculation had come to be regarded
about this time, not merely as a troublesome affair to those who
submitted to it, but as a serious evil, to society. Henceforth, the
controversy over the Cow-Pox absorbed almost exclusively the
attention of those concerned for the prevention of Small-Pox, and
for a long while little was heard of any means other than vaccination,
such as isolation, &c., for the suppression or restriction of
the disease.
From such records and statistics as are available it would
appear that Small-Pox was more prevalent and the mortality from
it was greater, especially in large towns, during the 18th century
than it had been in the 17th. It is also true that, speaking
broadly, the present century compares favourably with the last;
the disease has not been the scourge that it then was. Prior to
1838, when official registration of the causes of death in this
country began, the longest series of figures, and those which have
been most often quoted, are the London Bills of Mortality. The
following figures are taken from a table put in by Sir J. Simon,
which was compiled by Dr. Farr, with due regard to the many
sources of error which these Bills admittedly contain:—

Annual Death Rates in London per 100,000 living at Seven different Periods during the Years 1629-1835, from—

-All Causes.Small-Pox.Fever.
1629-355.000180636
1660-798,000417785
1728-575,200426785
1771-805,000502621
1801-102,920204264
1831-353,20083111