Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Report on the sanitary condition and vital statistics during the year 1908 together with the report of the Chief Sanitary Inspector
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sole and plaice. Looking at the result of Mr. Henley's
investigations, I do not think that fried fish can be
blamed as a source of typhoid fever in Bethnal Green;
but what I do blame are the dirty, careless habits of
many of the people. I was particularly struck with one
instance in which five children, whose ages ranged
from eight to fifteen, and all members of one family,
sickened and were removed to hospital one after
another. In the house where these children resided,
I repeatedly saw remains of food and unwashed cups
and plates left from one meal to the next; and for
anything I know the crockery was never properly
cleansed. I have no doubt that cultural examination
of the hands of the children of this family, or rather
of the dirt easily to be scraped from their fingers, would
have shewn the presence of the Typhoid bacillus ; the
communication of the disease from one to another in
this family is no mystery.
TYPHUS and SMALL POX
No case of either of these diseases was reported
during the year.
WHOOPING COUGH.
Deaths 42. (Decennial average 63).
All these deaths were amongst young children, aged
less than five years, a mortality on the estimated
population of young children of 2.3.
DIARRHÅ’AL DISEASES.
Deaths 102. (Decennial average 177).
Various forms of diarrhoea caused 102 deaths of
which sixty-eight were amongst young children, and