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) 1870
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, The Vestry of the Parish of St. George the Martyr]
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| 1865—6 | 1866—7 | 1867—8 | 1868—9 | 1869—70 | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First Quarter | Second Quarter | Third Quarter | Fourth Quarter | Total. | First Quarter | Second Quarter | Third Quarter | Fourth Quarter | Total | First Quarter | Second Quarter | Thirl Quarter | Fourth Quarter | Total | First Quarter | Second Quarter | Third Quarter | Fourth Quarter | Total | First Quarter | Second Quarter | Third Quarter | Fourth Quarter | Total | |
| Small Pox | 2 | 1 | 3 | 8 | 14 | 3 | 14 | 44 | 7 | 1 | ... | ... | 4 | 3 | 7 | 3 | |||||||||
| Measles | ... | 8 | 31 | 13 | 5 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 4 | 13 | 11 | 3 | 16 | 5 | 35 | 14 | 13 | 13 | 46 | ||||
| searlatina | 4 | 6 | 28 | 7 | 12 | 5 | 10 | 34 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 42 | 8 | 11 | 29 | 3 | 51 | 6 | 59 | 61 | 26 | 152 | |||
| Diphtheria | ... | 1 | 3 | 2 | 6 | ... | 3 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 | ... | 1 | 2 | 3 | |||||
| Whooping- Cough | 7 | 5 | 15 | 21 | 48 | 29 | 11 | 11 | 4 | 55 | 13 | 25 | 67 | 19 | 16 | 5 | 3 | 43 | 20 | 11 | 22 | 21 | |||
| Diarrhœa | 12 | 63 | 4 | 85 | 6 | 29 | 8 | 1 | 4 | 6 | 58 | 11 | 68 | 6 | 3 | 88 | 7 | 63 | 3 | 2 | 75 | ||||
| Typhus | 11 | 10 | 12 | 18 | 51 | ... | 26 | 12 | ... | 38 | 6 | 11 | 34 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 15 | 48 | 11 | 11 | 4 | 10 | 36 | ||
According to many sanitarians of high repute, no such Table should bo necessary. I
may truly affirm that no death, nor ailment from certain zymotic diseases, should be possible.
But during the year four hundred and fifty deaths from these causes have been
recorded. Small pox has been fatal in fourteen cases, measles in forty-six, scarlet fever
in one hundred and fifty-two, whooping-cough in seventy-four, fever in thirty-six, and
diarrhœa in seventy-five..
I beg first to direct your attention to small pox, which has been, as I have told
you, the cause of fourteen deaths. The victims were all children, with three exceptions,
they were under five years of ago. It would bo interesting to know how many cases have
occurred, and the damage sustained by those who have recovered. We find it stated, that
before vaccination was practised, every man seemed more or less speckled with pock-holes,
and that the race presented one moving mass of pits and scars. Out of every hundred cases
of blindness thirty were the result of small pox. The Medical Officers of the Small-pox
Hospital, in a Report for 1868, state that after the experience of the late small-pox epidemic
which has brought under their care 8000 cases of small-pox, that the confidence in
the value of vaccination has in no degree diminished, and that the opinion which some time
age they felt it their duty to express on vaccination, "neither requires qualification nor
admits of limitation." They morcover state, that "it is the greatest boon which was over
Conferred by man upon his species." Lot us consider for a few moments the safety of the
application of this "groat boon," as we have lately heard more than enough of the ovils
which have been said to follow, and which have changed the blessing into a curse. For
this purpose I shall place before you the opinions of men high in position, and of vast ex-