London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Hanover Square 1891

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hanover Square, The Vestry of the Parish of Saint George]

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18
One death from English Cholera was registered (under
the name of Cholerine).
Influenza: no less than 27 deaths were registered in the
Parish from this disease, and of these, 25 were those of persons
over 20 years of age, and 7 of them over 60. The large
number of deaths from diseases of the lungs is no doubt
attributable to a certain extent, to the results of attacks of
this disease. Upon this point the Registrar General
remarks as follows:—
"The increased mortality from discases of the respiratory
system was most remarkable. In 1889, as shewn in the
Annual Summary for that year, there had been a saving
under this heading of 4,376 lives, when the years
mortality was compared with the average of the previous
decennium; but in 1890, this saving was transformed
into a loss of 2,143 lives. This striking change was
entirely due to the enormous mortality from Lung
diseases, in the first and the last months of the year. In
January, there was a sharp, though not very lengthy,
outbreak of Influenza, and though the deaths" directly
ascribed to this epidemic influence, only numbered 303 in
the month, and were not classified among diseases of the
respiratory organs, but separately in the zymotic class,
there can be 110 doubt that the much larger excess of
deaths concomitantly attributed to respiratory diseases
were, in reality, cases of Influenza. For, in the first place,
the enormous and sudden increase in these deaths occurred
at a time when the ordinary cause of increased mortality
from lung diseases, namely, severe cold, was conspicuously
absent, the mean temperature in January having, in fact,
been no less than 70. I. Fahr. above the average for that
month. Secondly, the usual winter rise in the mortality
from Lung diseases takes place under the heading
Bronchitis, in a much greater degree than under the