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43
THE LONDON FOG
General.—In the early morning of Friday, 5th December, high
barometric pressure, low ground temperature, high relative humidity
and absence of wind resulted in a dense fog over the London area
which persisted until the morning of the following Tuesday,
December, 9th.
The first indications of the serious nature of this fog became
manifest at the Smithfield Cattle Show, when numbers of first-grade
cattle rapidly became distressed and died in a matter of horns.
Within a day or so many Londoners exhibited somewhat
similar symptoms and it later transpired that the number of deaths
registered during the week ended 6th December and the succeeding
three or four weeks was greatly in excess of the normal or average
for that time of year, and also that the increase was associated
with the fog. Dr. W. P. D. Logan, Chief Medical Statistician of the
General Register Office, has estimated that this smoke-fog, now
colloquially known as "smog," was responsible for approximately
4,000 deaths in the Greater London area, indicating a catastrophe
of the first magnitude. Further, the Ministry of Health has recently
stated that this same fog cost the National Health Service some
£400,000 in prescriptions alone.
Pollution at Greenwich.—It is a regrettable fact that the only
records of atmospheric pollution in the Greenwich area are maintained
at the Fuel Research Station at Blackwall Lane. Dr.
Wilkins, Officer-in-Charge of the Atmospheric Pollution Section, to
whom I am indebted for permission to make use of data compiled at
the Station, has intimated that " data obtained at the Station cannot
be considered as typical for more than a very small corner of the
Borough. Much of the pollution observed in the neighbourhood
of the Fuel Research Station is of a local character and in the prevailing
winds much of this airborne material is soon carried over the
River. Furthermore, from other tentative information, we are of
the opinion that the pattern of pollution in Greenwich is unusually
complicated, possibly as a result of the distribution of the sources
of pollution and the topography of the district. The indication
are that, for this and other reasons, there are considerable differences
between the degree of pollution from one part of the Borough to
another; but, except for the immediate neighbourhood of the
Research Station, we know next to nothing about the amounts or
distribution of pollution in Greenwich."