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

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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London

Deptford 1914

Annual report on the health of the Metropolitan Borough of Deptford

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Table: TABLE SHEWING THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS IN THE BOROUGH DURING THE YEAR 1914.

TABLE SHEWING THE NUMBER OF BIRTHS AND DEATHS IN THE BOROUGH DURING THE YEAR 1914.

BIRTHS3121
DEATHS—including 616 in Outlying Public Institutions1598
Excess of Births over Deaths1523

Table: I submit a list of the principal causes of the 309 infantile deaths in the Borough during 1914, viz.:—

I submit a list of the principal causes of the 309 infantile deaths in the Borough during 1914, viz.:—

Measles7
Tuberculosis11
Meningitis4
Convulsions8
Bronchitis and Pneumonia43
Diarrhceal Diseases34
Enteritis and Diseases of Digestive System42
Gastritis7
Syphilis11
Suffocation in bed with parents5
Congenital Malformation, Atelectasis, and
Injury at Birth13
Debility and Marasmus38
Premature Birth69
Other causes17
309

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Although the Infantile Mortality for the whole of the Borough may
be this year considered very satisfactory yet I still hope to see a further
reduction in one of our wards in particular.
In previous reports I have given the contributing causes of the
higher infantile death rate in the central district of the Borough,
which contains practically the whole of the East Ward, to which I
particularly refer. We found that the conditions associated with and
assisting in varying degree in the production of excessive infant
mortality were partly social and partly sanitary, and that it is easy,
according to the point of view adopted, to magnify unduly the
importance of one set of factors. The effects of unsatisfactory
domestic and extra-domestic local conditions are fairly obvious, and
their consequences fall most heavily on the poorer members of the
community. Of the domestic forms of insanitation to be noted in
Deptford, overcrowding and lack of cleanliness are probably the most
important. For the infant it means exposure to a stuffy atmosphere, and
the storage of milk in a contaminated and vitiated atmosphere. Outside