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REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
FOR THE YEAR 1905.
To the Right Worshipful the Mayor, Aldermen and Councillors
of the Metropolitan Borough of Islington.
Gentlemen,
I herewith have pleasure in presenting you with the Fiftieth Annual
Report on the health of the people and the sanitary state of your borough,
and in doing so I am very glad to be able to congratulate you on the
satisfactory condition of both.
I had thought on this occasion to have reviewed the changes that have
occurred here during the last fifty years, but I found that unfortunately such
a review might easily fill a volume much larger than this report. Nevertheless,
it would have been of the deepest interest to have traced the great social
changes that have occurred in this, the greatest of the London boroughs,
changes which are so typical of those that have taken place throughout
our vast Metropolis in the same period.
Much has occurred in the half century to alter the physical character
of the borough since my old friend and counsellor, Doctor Edward Ballard,
penned his first annual report, the most noticeable circumstance being that,
whereas when he took office there were ample open spaces, green fields and
pastures new, albeit they were being rapidly encroached upon for building
purposes, there is none to-day, for they have been covered with prosaic bricks
and mortar; and that whereas the inhabitants then numbered just on 100,000,
to-day they approximate to 343,000. Then was Islington in its most virile
state, it was literally increasing by leaps and bounds, for I find that from
1841 to 1851 its population increased by 70 per cent., and from 1851 to 1861
by 63 per cent., or by no less than 100,000 in twenty years. Then, too, the
birth-rate was flourishing, and caused no anxiety, for it was no less than 35
per 1,000, its mean between 1851 and 1861 being 34.5 per 1,000, while to-day
it has fallen as low as 25.5 per 1,000. Curiously enough there has been very
little change in the marriage rate, which then averaged 18 per 1,000