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

View report page

West Ham 1899

Annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1899

This page requires JavaScript

248
many years, side by side with the building boom, while tending to
lower the general death-rate has not been sufficient to counteract the
evils attending rapidly-built houses, more rapidly inhabited—evils
such as dampness of dwelling and fouling of the soil, which render
the rising generation more prone to succumb to attacks of zymotic
disease than, under happier circumstances, they would be. It is thus
that the housing problem is looked upon by the Council as one of the
most essential to be solved as a means both directly and indirectly
of effecting improvement in this respect; directly by levelling up and
providing healthy dwellings and indirectly by training the people to
value them.
The circumstances associated with the recent prevalence
of Diphtheria in West Ham.
Having dealt with the diptheria prevalence during the year 1898
in my last annual report, it will be convenient to especially consider
in this report the incidence and mortality of that disease during the
first three quarters of the current year.
As a means of comparison I append below the weekly notifications
of diphtheria during the past 3¾ years:—

Table III.

Weekly Notifications of Diphtheria.

1896.1897.1898.¾ of 1899.
1411941
1115622
1712835
3881147
1781331
1082028
14111227
16161931
1372520
8151617
187938
85186
8181621
Total for 1st quarter— 192— 141— 182— 364
Carried forward192141182364