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

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Kensington 1893

The annual report on the health, sanitary condition, &c., &c., of the Parish of St. Mary Abbotts, Kensington for the year 1893

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101
The Committee, in concluding their own report, state that since
the opening of the first Institution (the temporary hospital for relapsing
fever at Hampstead) in 1870, there have been under the care of
the Managers, 97,961 persons, "admitted direct, from homes or
parishes and unions," to the Fever Hospitals, of whom 3,270 remained
in the various hospitals on the 31st December, 1893. The patients
admitted to the Small-pox Hospitals numbered 60,874, of whom 84
remained under treatment at the same date. Grand Total, 158,835.
Part II., appended to the Committee's report, comprises the
"Reports of the Medical Superintendents of the several Infectious
Fever Hospitals for the year 1893." Part III. deals with small-pox,
including the report of the Medical Superintendent of the Hospital
Ships, and an appendix on va'ccination statistics; a report on the
River Ambulance Service by the Medical Officer in charge thereof,
together with a history of the small-pox epidemic of 1893, by the
same gentleman. The several reports contain a mine of statistical
information, which it is impossible to summarise Part V. is the
Annual Report of the Ambulance Committee. Part VI. describes the
Board's arrangements, made in view of a possible epidemic of cholera,
under the direction of a medical adviser appointed for the purpose.
Tables appended to the Committee's report show the annual
admisssions and deaths of patients at the Managers' hospitals, with
the mortality per cent., since the establishment of the first hospital in
1870, together with extracts from the Registrar-General's Annual
Summaries showing the annual mortality per 1,000 persons living of
the population, from scarlet, typhus, and enteric fevers, and small-pox;
and the annual average mortality from scarlet and enteric fevers for
certain specified years before and since the establishment of the
hospitals. Comparing the mortality from scarlet fever during
the 13 years preceding the establishment of the hospitals, with
the mortality during the past 13 years, the latter shows a decline
of 70 per cent. ; whilst the mortality rates of enteric fever for the
three years 1891 to 1893 inclusive, show a decline of 57 per cent.,
compared with the three years preceding the opening of the hospitals.
" The decreasing percentage of the mortality amongst scarlet fever
patients treated in the hospitals," it is said, "continues to be a
noticeable feature in the fever table."