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) 1897
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, The Vestry of the Parish of St. George the Martyr]
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8 Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark.
As in the calculation of the general death-rate, so with the zymotic death-rate,
the deaths of non-parishoners occurring within the district have been excluded; on the
other hand, the deaths of parishioners in public institutions outside the parish have
been included. Unless a proper distribution of these deaths be made, especially of
those from zymotic diseases, no really trustworthy data can be secured upon which to
calculate the rates of mortality.
Among the various sanitary areas the zymotic death-rates ranged from 1.09 in
St. George, Hanover Square, 116 in Hampstead, 1.19 St. Martin-in-the-Fields. 1.43
in Lee, 161 in Marylebone, 163 in St. Giles, and 166 in City of London, to 3 61 in
Clerkenwell, 3 66 in St. Saviour, Southwark, 3.67 in St. Luke, 4.07 in Shoreditch
4.27 in St. George-in-the-East, and 4 3 in St. George's, Southwark and in Bermondsey,
TABLE VI.—For t h e Year 1897.
| Birth-rate per 1,000. | Death-rate per 1,000. | Zymotic death-rate. | Phthisis death-rate. | Other Tubercular Diseases death-rate. | Respiratory Diseases death-rate. | Deaths under 1 year, to 1,000 births. | Percentage of deaths under 5 to total deaths. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| St. George's, Southwark | 35.0 | 23.2 | 4.3 | 2.8 | 0.9 | 5.6 | 189 | 47.3 |
| London | 29.9 | 18.1 | 2.6 | - | - | - | 159 | - |
TABLE VII.
| Disease. | Actual number of Deaths in St. George's, Southwark. | St. George's, Southwark, proportion to total London deaths according to its population. |
|---|---|---|
| Diarrhœa | 111 | 56 |
| Measles | 67 | 26 |
| Whooping Cough | 32 | 25 |
| Diphtheria | 28 | 30 |
| Scarlet Fever | 14 | 11 |
| Fever (chiefly Typhoid) | 11 | 8 |
| Small-pox | 1 | .2 |
The mortality from measles, diarrhoea, and whooping cough is seen from the
foregoing table to be excessive in St. George's as compared with all London. The
zymotic death-rate is the highest in the metropolis with the exception of Bermondsey,
which is bracketed at the same figure. The almost total absence of deaths from
small-pox is in itself a valuable evidence as to the efficiency of modern preventive
measures of vaccination, together with notification and prompt isolation.
Diarrhœa.
Amongst children diarrhoea is the most deadly preventable complaint in your
parish. With the high figure of 111 it heads the table of mortality from zymotic