London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Paddington 1905
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, Metropolitan Borough of]
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72
HOUSING.
was slightly above the mean for the second period (1901-04). The increase was probably
due to measles. As regards infants under 1 year, the proportion to deaths at all ages has
decreased from 308 per 1,000 in 1800-1900 to 288 in 1905, but the proportion to deaths at
ages 0-10 years has increased from 50.0 to 62.5 per cent. The explanation of these changes
is probably to be found in the reduced prevalence of infectious diseases with consequent
decrease in the mortality at ages from 1-10 years. The changes further suggest that the
infantile mortality has not decreased, as that at higher ages has done.
A very significant change is the increased proportion of deaths in institutions, from
30 per cent. of all deaths in 1890-1900 to 41.2 per cent. in 1901-01, and 35.9 per cent. in 1905.
Having regard to the decrease in prevalence of infectious diseases, this increase in
institutional deaths suggests an increase in the poverty of the inhabitants of the Area.
Unemployment has been for some time excessive, a fact which implies an increase in
women's work, and to that may be due in part the failure of the infantile mortality to
decrease. Poverty implies also inability to secure proper attention at the lying-in, to which
is attributed the increase in the morbidity rate for puerperal fever. Dirty conditions can
hardly account for that increase, as the rates for the other infectious diseases, and especially
for erysipelas—the dirt disease—have gone down.
TABLE 46.
Clarendon Street Area. Morbidity and Mortality Rates per 1,000 persons, except otherwise stated.
| Clarendon Street Area. | Rest of Borough. | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mean Rates. | 1905. | Mean Rates. | 1905. | |||||
| 1896-1900. | 1901-04. | 1896-1900. | 1901-04. | |||||
| Morbidity. | Small-pox | — | 1.41 | — | 0.00 | 0.14 | 0.01 | |
| Diphtheria | 1.85 | 1.53 | 1.37 | 2.17 | 1.43 | 0.61 | ||
| Erysipelas | 2.07 | 1.41 | 0.91 | 1.07 | 0.84 | 0.92 | ||
| Scarlet Fever | 5.21 | 4.28 | 2.89 | 3.99 | 2.73 | 1.82 | ||
| Enteric Fever | 0.95 | 0.94 | 0.30 | 0.54 | 0.43 | 0.31 | ||
| Puerperal Fever | 0.05 | 0.07 | 0.15 | 0.07 | 0.06 | 0.04 | ||
| Mortality. | At all ages | 28.75 | 25.33 | 23.75 | 16.17 | 13.36 | 12.78 | |
| 0—10 years | Rates per 1,000 persons at these ages. | 46.87 | 37.54 | 37.75 | ? | 25.66 | 24.24 | |
| 10— | 20.41 | 19.81 | 18.00 | ? | 11.01 | 11.05 | ||
| Infants under 1 yr.* | 308 | 289 | 288 | 288 | 204 | 206 | ||
| In Institutions† | 30.0 | 41.2 | 35.9 | 22.6 | 20.9 | 28.7 | ||
| Infants under 1 yr. ‡ | 59.0 | 62.3 | 62.5 | ? | 66.5 | 65.0 | ||
* Per 1,000 deaths at all ages. †Per 100 deaths. ‡Per 100 deaths, 0—10 years.
Exemption by rents.—For some time a doubt has prevailed whether the rent exemptions
from the operation of the By.laws for Houses Let in Lodgings has not impeded the work
of improving the condition of tenement houses. With a view to testing that suspicion, the
opportunity was taken during the inspection requisite for the annual cleansing to obtain
information as to the rents paid for the various classes of tenements in the registered houses.