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Parish of St. Mary, Stoke Newington.
REPORT OF MEDICAL OFFICER.
Vestry Offices,
Church Street,
Stoke Newington, N.
February, 1900.
To the Members of the Vestry of the Parish of St. Mary, Stoke
Newington.
Gentlemen,
Speaking of the country as a whole, one noteworthy feature of
the year 1899 was the large number of deaths during the third
quarter from Summer Diarrhoea. Notwithstanding the measures
hitherto adopted to protect the public health, it still only needs the
peculiar combination of meteorological conditions so long known to be
identified with fatal diarrhœa to bring about much the same results.
These conditions are diminished rainfall and excessively high temperature.
During the third quarter of 1899 the rainfall was 2.9 inches
below the average for the preceding 84 years and the temperature,
which was excessively high during all the three months of the quarter,
was 3.3°F. above the average for the preceding 128 years. A recrudescence
of Influenza towards the end of the year was partly responsible
for the slight increase in the general death-rate of the country, for, in
addition to the deaths directly attributed to the disease, it is indirectly
responsible for a large increase of deaths ascribed to diseases of the
respiratory and, to a less extent, of other organs.
Although the death-rates for London and the whole country for the
year 1899 were slightly in excess of those for 1898, the rate for Stoke