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Offices of the Board of Works for the Whitechapel District.
Sanitary Department:
No. 15, Great Alie Street,
London, E.
January 17 th, 1894.
Gentlemen.
Having completed ten years as your Medical Officer
of Health, I propose that the present Report shall contain, in
addition to the customary Tables which I have hitherto submitted,
a series of Tables dealing with the years from 1884, down to the
present time. These Tables appear in the second part of the
Appendix. I do not propose to discuss these Tables in detail;
they have been added so that a continuous record should be ready
for reference concerning the most important events connected with
the Sanitary history of the Whitechapel District. It is only necessary
to explain, that the year 1889 was responsible for the occupation
of many houses erected upon sites which had been for some years
vacant, hence the sudden increase in the number of deaths after
that year. It is interesting to compare the share taken by each
disease in making up the Mortality Tables during the ten years.
Thus, in the two first years, 27 deaths were registered from Smallpox
within the Whitechapel District, then followed for seven years,
an entire absence of death from that disease: last year 5 deaths
from Small-pox were registered. Most of the other Zymotic
diseases have their years of virulency, and those of mildness.
Influenza re-appeared after an absence of many years, and during
the last three years became responsible for nearly 150 deaths.
Diphtheria seems to have come with the intention of remaining.
Hitherto it has baffled the most skilled scientist to discover
the secrets of its etiology. The Medical Officer of the Local
Government Board, has recently given evidence that the subjecfl
is one receiving the best attention of that Board's Officers. Almost
the first work which devolved upon me ten years since, was to
review our position, should Cholera arrive in this country.
Scarcely a year has passed since then, without the subjedt being