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61
Report of Medicai. Officer of Health.]
In these three areas the inhabitants reside almost entirely in tenements of 1, 2, or 3 rooms.
The contrast between the mean annual mortality calculated for these areas and that of the whole
district of St. Mary (1.4) is striking. As might be expected, there were a considerable number of
multiple deaths in these areas.
Houses with—deaths.*
2 3 4 5
Hall Park Area 12 8 1 —
North Wharf Boad Area 9 4 — 1
Clarendon Street Area 46 10 2 —
Table 27 (p. 54) furnishes striking confirmation of the foregoing statistics. It will be noted
that (with two exceptions) the mortality from phthisis rises and falls with the percentage of
inhabitants living in overcrowded tenements. The two districts which do not follow this rule are
St. George, Hanover Square and St. Marylebone. With regard to the former no explanation can
be offered, but with respect to the latter, it is not improbable that the exceptional (low) mortality
may be in part due to the clearances which have taken place since 1891, owing to the construction
of the Great Central Railway.
With reference to the part played by food in the production of tuberculosis in man, only one
point will be dealt with, viz., the presence of the bacillus tuberculosis in milk. The importance of
tuberculosis in relation to meat is not forgotten, but the circumstances of the meat trade of the
Parish, to a certain extent, place the subject beyond present consideration.
The dangers associated with the consumption of milk from tuberculous cows, especially
when the disease affects the udders, were strougly emphasized in the reports of the Royal Commissions
ou Tuberculosis of 1895 and 1898. The dangers are the greater in this country from the
almost universal custom of drinking raw or imperfectly cooked milk. Milk is much more the food
of young children than of adults, and to this fact is due the greater frequency of tubercular diseases
of the intestines among them.
From time to time reports have been published giving the percentages of samples of milk from
different sources found to be infected with tuberculosis. The following are a few such returns:†—
No.
of Dairies
examined.
x
No.
producing
Tuberculosis.
Percentage
producing
Tuberculosis.
Cambridge (mixed milk) 16 9 56.2
Liverpool:
1st series
Town milk
144 4 2.8
Country milk
24 7 29.1
2nd series
Town milk
228 12 5.2
Country milk
67 9 13.4
Manchester (Country milk) 93 17 18.2
,, (2nd series) 85 12 14.1
* These figures probably understate the case to a considerable extent. More than a proportional part of the
unallotted deaths referred to on p. 58 were those of poor people coming from these areas.
† From the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health of Brighton, quoted in Public Health, xiii., p. 639.