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49
Annual Report of the- Medical Officer of Health—1895.
No of Infected Tenants.
No. of Persons occupying Infected
Tenements.
Disease.
One
Room.
Two
Rooms.
Three
Rooms.
Total.
One
Room.
Two
Rooms.
Three
Rooms.
.
Scarlet Fever
162
279
89
530
508
1,230
510
2,248
Diphtheria
67
68
33
168
216
364
206
786
Erysipelas
11
12
3
26
25
43
18
86
Enteric or Typhoid
Fever
18
13
—
31
53
55
—
108
Puerperal Fever
4
—
—
4
—
16
—
16
Small-pox
12
7
—
19
—
30
36
66
274
379
125
778
802
1,738
770
3,310
The above return is not in any way a complete list of all cases of the
six diseases mentioned. However, it puts on record the fact that during the past
3½ years 778 infected tenements, occupied by 3,310 infected persons, have not been
disinfected. In other words, apart from dwellings, 3,310 centres of infection have
been permitted to continue a danger, not only to themselves, but to their fellow
citizens throughout the metropolis.
For further information, if needed, I would refer new members of the Vestry to
two exhaustive special reports "on a Proposed Reception House" printed in full, in
the Vestry's Report for 1892-3, from which the following may be quoted :—
" Since there is so much overcrowding and poverty with its accompanying disease,
ignorance, and filth, I think no one can gainsay that this district is, of all others,
the one where a Reception House is needed.
"I am aware that our high poor-rate presses heavily on the rate-payers, and it
is only after careful consideration that I have determined upon making the present
report. I believe, however, that a Reception House will ultimately prove the means
of lowering rather than of raising the rates, by keeping people out of the Workhouse
and Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.
"It will certainly prevent many deaths and more sickness, misery and broken
health. It will facilitate the removal of mothers into the hospitals, and give time
to the bread-winner to provide for his children.''
Since writing the above, an Act of Parliament, in my opinion a wise one—at least,
so far as the public health is concerned, has been enacted. I refer to the (London)
Equalisation of Rates Act, 1894, which came into operation on 30th of September,
1894.
This "Act to make better provisions for the Equalisation of Rates as between
the different parts of London," was not passed with the object, as might be
assumed from the title, of creating a uniform system of rating in the metropolis, but
i order to afford relief to the poorer parishes at the expense of the richer.
By virtue of the Act, St. George the Martyr may draw upwards of £4,000 annually,
paid half-yearly, and chiefly by the richer districts of the City of London, St. George's,
Hanover Square, the Strand, Kensington, Westminster, Paddington, and Hampstead.
[Section 6 of the Act definitely states that the sum mentioned by me " shall be
applied in defraying the expenses of the Sanitary Authority, incurred under the