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Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
During the year 1893, 268 infected tenements, occupied by 1,331 infected persons,
were not efficiently disinfected. In other words, 1,331 centres of infection over and
above the 268 infected tenements continue their liability to spread fevers, diphtheria,
and erysipelas broad-cast by means of the clothes and persons of the families of the
infected.
During the period reported upon I have noted many examples of widowers, whose
children have been confined to their beds with dangerous catching diseases. The care
and nursing of these motherless children devolving upon the fathers, the latter have
been obliged against their own will to throw up their work and seek relief at the
hands of the guardians, thus swelling the numbers of the unemployed.
My opinion is that had your Vestry acted upon the advice tendered by me in a
Special Report on a proposed Reception House, presented on the 20th December,
1892, much money in Poor and Metropolitan Asylum Board Rates would have been
saved to the ratepayers of this poor Parish.
Moreover, many deaths and more sickness, misery, and broken health would have
been avoided among those stricken with infectious disease.
Section 60, sub-section 4 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, is perfectly
explicit. The law is not merely permissive, but it says the authority shall provide
shelter free of cost for the families of infected patients pending the disinfection of
their houses or tenements. This important matter has been considered by your Public
Health Committee, but no action has been resolved upon.
Uniform Death Rates.
In accordance with the instruction of your Health Committee, I beg, herewith, to
report on the results obtained by the despatch of the following circular letter:—
" Vestry of St. George the Martyr, Southwark,
Vestry Hall, Borough Road, Southwark, S.E.,
November 20th, 1893.
Dear Sir,
I am directed by the Public Health Committee of this Parish to inquire if your
Medical Officer of Health in calculating the General and Zymotic Death Rates of
your sanitary area is in the habit of excluding the deaths of non-parishioners occurring
within the district, and of including the deaths of parishioners dying in public
institutions outside the district. If this method is not adopted will you kindly state
how the rates of mortality are determined. An early answer will oblige.
Yours very truly,
(Signed) A. Millar, Vestry Clerk."
This letter was sent to the clerks of the various Metropolitan Vestries and District
Boards of Works, which together number forty.
Replies have been received and handed me by your Vestry Clerk from twenty-nine
of these authorities, each of these twenty-nine bodies, with the exception of two, state
that their Medical Officers of Health adopt the Registrar-General's method in the
computation of the Death Rates—i.e., they exclude the deaths of non-parishioners
dying in public institutions within the district.
In the Vestry of St. James and St. John, Clerkenwell, there being no public institutions
within the district, correction, therefore, is made only for those parishioners
dying in public institutions outside the district.