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

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Holborn 1922

Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1922

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12
tkiring the year attention was called to the high infantile mortality rate in
the Borough as given by the Registrar-General in his quarterly report for the
second quarter of the year 1922, and attention has again been directed to the
subject in connection with the figures published for the first quarter of the
current year (1923).
It should be clearly understood that the figures given in these quarterly
reports necessarily refer to incompletely corrected infantile mortality rates.
Corrections for deaths are made (i.e., deaths occurring in institutions of persons
who were not residents of the areas where deaths take place, are transferred to
the areas of residence), but the corresponding correction for births (i.e., the
transference of births occurring in institutions to the residential area of the
parents) is not made until after the publication of the quarterly report. Holborn
has no maternity institution in the Borough, but has the advantage of a number
of large hospitals with maternity wards near the Borough and many Holborn
mothers go into such institutions for confinement. As a result of this the birth
corrections considerably modify the Holborn infantile death-rate as will be seen
from the following figures:—
Infantile Death-rate in Holborn per 1000 Births
Registrar General's Quarterly Report
Corrected
1st Quarter 1922 90 68
2nd ,, 1922 4492
1st „ 1923 117 84

Poor Law and Hospital Relief. The Clerk to the Guardians of the Holborn Union has kindly supplied me with the following information relating to persons from the Holborn Division of the Union who received Poor Law Relief during the vear 1922.

Indoor Relief1,263 persons
Outdoor Relief420 cases
Outdoor Medical Relief183 persons

Of the total number of 570 deaths, 368 died 111 hospitals and public institutions
either within or without the Borough.
SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BOROUGH.
Scavenging.
The removal of house and trade refuse is carried out by contract. In the
main thoroughfares, and in a number of other principal streets, there is a daily
collection. In the remainder of the streets the collection is twice weekly.