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Annual Report on the Health and Sanitary
Condition of the City of Westminster.
1907.
To the
Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors
of the City of Westminster.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
I have the honour to submit to you my Annual Report on the
Health and Sanitary Condition of the City of Westminster during the
year 1907.
Returns required by the Local Government Board, and particulars
relating to Factories and Workshops required by the Home
Office, are incorporated therein.
Meteorological conditions play an important part with regard to the
prevalence of disease and the mortality resulting therefrom. The
amount of rain, the frequency and period of its fall, the temperature
during the various months, periods of drought, &c., have an influence
which may extend over several years. The effect of such conditions on
agricultural crops has received some attention, but there is still room
for careful study in relation to diseases, especially such as are due to
low forms of life. Thus it has been found that the date when corn
ripens depends on the total excess of heat above a given figure, and it is
not improbable that the occurrence of diarrhoea and the increase in
scarlet fever and diphtheria in autumn depends to some extent upon the
same circumstance. This year the rainfall in Westminster, as shown
in the subjoined Table (compiled from the Meteorological Office
Reports), was only 19.52 inches, being 80 per cent. of the average rainfall
of the last thirty years, and it fell on 162 days as compared with
149 days in 1906. The temperature was below the average until
September, and thus there were comparatively few diarrhoea deaths (in
London 4,507 in 1906 and 1,523 in 1907), and these were in the fourth