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 1911
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, Metropolitan Borough of]
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29
MEASLES.
TABLE 20.
Measles. Mortality rates per 1,000 persons of all ages.
| 1906-1910. | 1911. | 1906-1910. | 1911. | 1906-1910. | 1911. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Paddington | 0.24 | Holborn | 0.29 | South wark | 0.65 | |||
| Kensington | 0.30 | Finsbury | 0.80 | Bermondsey | 0.94 | |||
| Hammersmith | 0.46 | City of London | 0.12 | Lambeth | 0.34 | |||
| Fulham | 0.45 | 0.55 | Battersea | 0.38 | ||||
| Chelsea | 0.45 | Wandsworth | 0.23 | |||||
| Westminster | 013 | Camberwell | 0.40 | |||||
| 0.32 | Deptford Greenwich | 0.51 | ||||||
| 0.40 | ||||||||
| Shoreditch | 0.81 | Lewisham | 0.14 | |||||
| Bethnal Green | 0.58 | Woolwich | 0.31 | |||||
| Stepney | 0.65 | |||||||
| St. Marylebone | 0.25 | Poplar | 0.59 | 0.40 | ||||
| Hampstead | 0.13 | 0.65 | ||||||
| St. Pancras | 0.43 | |||||||
| Islington | 0.47 | |||||||
| Stoke Newington | 0.19 | County of London | 0.42 | |||||
| Hackney | 0.29 | |||||||
| 0.35 |
In March of last year the Local Government Board convened a conference of the Medical
Officers of Health of the Metropolitan Cities and Boroughs to consider what steps should be
taken to cope with the epidemic, even then on the wane. The two most important results of the
conference were (i.) the decision to extend the use of the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums
Board to the disease, and (ii.) the issue by the County Council of instructions to School
Attendance Officers to report direct to the Medical Officers of Health any cases of measles
discovered in the course of visits with reference to absence from school. The Local Government
Board issued a " Memorandum on Measles " recommending a course of procedure for coping
with the disease, which agreed very closely with the practice of the Department. The
desirability of making the disease notifiable was strongly pressed upon the President of the
Board at the conference (he was in the Chair), but the suggestion did not meet with approval.
However, the Stepney Borough Council made an Order for notification which the Board
approved, the Order coming into force in the week ending May 13th. The last week in which
returns were made to the Metropolitan Asylums Board was that ending December 2nd.
Between May 6th and December 2nd 1,869 cases were notified, but the worst of the epidemic
was over before notification came into effect. During that same period 100 deaths were
registered as due to measles, but as attacks and deaths do not fall in the same week, something
like half the total deaths (10) in the first week ought to be deducted to adjust for such
difference. That would leave 95 deaths among 1,869 cases, making the fatality 5'0 per cent.—
P2 higher than that recorded last year in the Borough (3.8 per cent.).
Proposals to make the disease notifiable have been put forward by the Council of this
Borough on more than one occasion (the last was in 1910), but the Board have hitherto
declined to entertain such proposals. One argument adduced against the proposals was the
undesirability of having the disease notifiable in one metropolitan area only and not in others.
Comment on that point appears to be superfluous.