View report page

7
hensive, for which a fee of five guineas would appear to have been a
gross underpayment! However in succeeding months the reports were
much shorter.
In the January report the medical officer dealt with various
removable causes of disease, which he classified under eight heads, seven
of which (dealing with light, ventilation, water supply, adulterated food,
unfit food, defective drainage and the state of dwelling houses) remain
the same today. The eighth head, namely "marsh miasm" is the only
one which is now obsolete. "Marsh miasm" apparently included "the
exhalations thrown out from decomposing vegetable matter, only
partially covered with water and exposed to the sun's rays." The
precise nature of these emanations was undecided, but the fact was
"well known" that they were capable of producing a peculiar disease
termed intermittent fever or ague. [It is probable that this meant that
there were malarial-producing mosquitoes breeding in marshy districts.]
The report deals in further detail with the districts of the borough and
it appears that although the Lewisham Board of Works included also the
village of Penge this latter place was regarded as "a hamlet of
Battersea." The word Lewisham came from laesew, a meadow, and
ham, a village. For the whole area of the Lewisham Board of Works,
that is including Lee, Sydenham, etc., the population in 1841 was some
15,000 and by 1851 it had risen to 19,000. The first classified list of
nuisances reported is for the period January to June 1856 and included
drainage into the old canal at Forest Hill, complaint being made of the
marshy state of the banks; thirteen houses at Lady-well entirely without
water supply, the Lady-well being cut off; 22 houses at Lewis Grove
discharging "all conceivable nuisances into the river"; choking up of a
drain at Mr. Arnold's silk mill in Lewisham "to great annoyance of
factory people"; and a great deal of offensive drainage, particularly in
the Sydenham, Willow Road and Wells Road areas. It is interesting to
note that in the summary of nuisances for the second half of 1856 the
Sydenham Gasworks occurs. Very detailed tables of mortality for the
year 1856 are given separately for the Blackheath, Sydenham, Lewisham
and Penge wards. "Hooping cough" killed no less than 18 children
and phthisis (tuberculosis) was the cause of death in 32 persons.
Unfortunately no less than 119 out of a total of 353 deaths were not
classified specifically but merely as "other diseases, chiefly chronic."
A rather more accurate comparison of causes of death can be
obtained over the last 50 years, and the chart shows these for certain
diseases, or groups of diseases. The first thing to be noted, however, is
the part of the chart labelled "all other" deaths. These are mainly
the vague or not fully ascertained causes, and it will be seen that, compared
with 1956, there were many more 25 years ago and still more 50
years ago. These excess numbers are nearly all in fact distributed to
other parts of the chart and would account for some of the length of the
1956 lines. Alternatively the 1906 and 1931 lines can be assumed to be
rather longer than they are shown.