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66
croup (diphtheria), measles, scarlatina, diarrhoea, and hooping cough. It is
further to be observed, that the streets, &c., inhabited by the lower classes in
the East Sub-district, are closer, narrower, and less airy, on the whole, than in
the West."
Sanitary conditions at this time were primitive to a high degree. Although
Islington was being rapidly built up, creating high population densities, water-supply,
refuse and waste disposals had not advanced to cope with the congestion which was
being created. The first Annual Report mentions among the sanitary improvements
accomplished during the year, the filling up and abandonment of 760 cesspools,
laying on of water to 812 privies, and the supply of water cisterns to the inhabitants
of two courts who were previously dependent on a temporary flow from a stand-pipe.
Dr. Ballard recommended the construction of sewers in several instances and
also favoured the abolition of the Hackney Brook as an open sewer where it ran
into Highbury Vale at a distance of a few feet from a number of houses of a low
class.
Dr. Ballard was not content with studying the returns, or accepting existent
conditions because they were part of the general picture of the time. As he said
in 1857
" Some of you . . . may have imagined that the infant mortality you have read
of, must have been confined to less healthy localities than Islington. But here
it is at your own threshold each death representing the hovering between life
and death of many more children, of whom some, at that very time, receive
the sentence which dooms them, after a sickly existence, to become early prey to
the maladies which await them in advancing life. Does it not become us to
think of all this, and to ask how it is that so many who must be believed to
be born, that they may become useful to their generation, are thus lost to that
object for which they appear in the world ? It is irrelevant to reply as some
do when such facts are urged upon them, that the race is improved by the
death of the weakly ones. What makes them weakly ? Do none but the
weakly thus succumb ? How many of these children might have been
preserved to a useful life, if poverty had not engendered apathy and ignorance
neglect ? How much infant mortality throughout the country might in future
be avoided, were the poor man's dwelling pervaded by a sweeter atmosphere ?
how much were the daughters of the poor not merely instructed in our schools,
but educated—educated to refuse the evil and choose the good ; educated to the
homely work of that station of life to which each future wife and mother is
destined ? how much, if the State were to withdraw its patronage from the
nostrum-monger, and to discountenance the sale of infant poisons ? If ever
this opprobium of our civilisation is to be wiped off, the clergyman, the district
visitor and, the schoolmistress, must join in the efforts of the professional
sanitarian."
Outbreaks of smallpox were prevalent in these years, and Dr. Ballard reported
23 deaths in 1859. In the two years 1859-60 there were 272 cases of smallpox
of whom 46 died.
Deaths from violence were frequent, 72 were registered in 1860, of which 43
were attributed to accident or negligence, 10 to suicide, and 12 to murder, the last
group being mainly infants. The path was hard for children in those days. In
1860, there were 67 deaths of illegitimate and deserted children, and Dr. Ballard
mentions specifically that some were downright murdered—one having its throat
cut.
Unwholesome courts and alleyways were well described in the 1863 Annual
Report. Those mentioned in particular were Irish Court, Rose and Crown Court,