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

St George (Southwark) 1868

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, The Vestry of the Parish of St. George the Martyr]

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41
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1867—8.

Table: TABLE No. 8 Continued.

TABLE No. 8 Continued.

1867—8.Small PoxMeaslesScarlatinaDiphtheriaWhooping CoughTyphusDiarrhœaTeething, Tabes,&c1867—8.1 Small PoxMeaslesScarlatinaDiphtheriaWhooping CoughTyphusDiarrhœaTeething, Tabes, &c.
Surrey Street......1............3Warner Street......1............2
Surrey Buildings............1...1...Warwick Street............3...1...
St. Stephen's Place.....................1West Place............2...1...
St. Stephen's Square............1.........Webber Row1...3...2...19
St. George's Circus.....................2West Square......1.........11
St. George's Place...............1...1William's Place.....................2
St. George's Passage.....................1Wilson's Court............1......1
St. George's Road...1...............2Wickham Place...............111
Southwark Bridge Road............3...32Webber Street...1...............1
Westcott Street............1.........
Wellington Place......1...1...l...
Tennis Place.....................1Westminster Bridge Rd.1l......2
Tower Street1............132White Street1...1...1......2
Townsend Street............1......4Workhouse..................26
Union Street, B. R.......31...1...3York Street, K. S..................11
Union Street, L. R2..................1York Street, L. R........................1
Union Street, K. R......1...............York Place......1..............
William Street............2......2

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The eighth Table places before you the localities in which deaths from zymotic, constitutional,
and developmental diseases have taken place. It will be found that where
poverty and over crowding exist, these diseases abound. Indeed poverty and over crowding
are but convertible terms. It seems to me that the tendency of the present day is to lessen
human responsibility; and make man good upon compulsion; to bring about by outward
force, that which ought to spring spontaneously from within. As men in the affairs of life will
not act with integrity and honor, why then means must bo made to compel them. For
every vice we shall soon have a law. This is sad, after so many centuries of teaching and
preaching. "What higher morality we seem to possess, when compared with the past,
appears to bo produced, not by greater love of virtue, but by the greater perfection of the
police." Man must bo made, in some measure, his own healer and helper. Improvement
must proceed from himself; and for this end his responsibility should bo increased, and
education in its widest and fullest sense extended. Sanitary knowledge is extremely
limited; and where possessed, seldom practised. One of the most neglected of sanitary
duties is ventilation; and yet it is one of the very utmost importance, as I have previously
shown. How many of our public rooms, churches, and chapels exhibit the greatest heedlessness
in this respect; and not for want of means so much, as from a foolish fear of draughts.
Some of our places of worship when full, and the gas is burning, are positively noxious. The
greatest pains are taken with reference to the health and comfort of the hearers, in most
of our public places of amusement; and surely every thing connected with religious worship
ought to approximate as nigh as possible to perfection. Besides, how is it possible to gain
the attention and consent of the lower and ignorant classes to this matter, when the upper
and intelligent classes are so careless about it.
The result of what massing together human beings will ultimately load to, is now being
tested to the utmost. Little garden-plots, green spots, open spaces, are absorbed and