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21
OPHTHALMIA NEONATORUM.
Ophthalmia Neonatorum is an infectious inflammation of the eyes in newlyborn
children, and is the most common cause of blindness beginning in infancy.
Three cases were notified in the Borough during the year, 2 in St. Giles and
Bloomsbury and 1 in the Holborn District. These cases were visited by the Lady
Sanitary Inspector. 1 of the infants was attended at an Ophthalmic Hospital,
1 by a private doctor, and 1 was removed to the Central London Sick Asylum,
all having nurses also in attendance.
PHTHISIS OR CONSUMPTION.
The number of deaths from phthisis during the year was 89, or a death-rate
of 1.87 per 1,000, or 1.60 if corrected for sex and age distribution. Of these 41
belonged to St. Giles and Bloomsbury, a death-rate of 1.70, and 48 to the Holborn
District, or a death-rate of 2.03 per 1,000.
Although the death-rate from phthisis is still high in the Borough there has
been a satisfactory reduction in the death-rates during the past 10 years, as is
shown in the table given below, the last 5 years having been much less than the
first 5 years of that decennium.
It must also be remembered that in Holborn there is a much larger proportion
of persons living in common lodging houses than in any other Loudon Borough.
In Holborn the rate is as many as 355 beds per 10,000 of the population; whereas
in Hampstead there are no common lodging houses, and 12 Boroughs have less
than one-tenth the proportion of Holborn.
During the seven years 1904-1910 the average death-rate in common lodging
houses in Holborn per 1,000 beds was about 20. Also during those years more
than 30 per cent. of the deaths from phthisis in Holborn had been residents in
common lodging houses in the Borough.
During the past year of the 89 deaths, 20 had been removed to infirmaries
from common lodging houses in the Borough, that is about 22.5 per cent. and less
than usual, 17 from St. Giles and Bloomsbury, and only 3 from the Holborn
District.
The corrected number of deaths in London was 5,981, equal to a rate of 1.30
per 1,000, compared with 1.35 for 1911 and 1912.
The following table gives the number of deaths in the Holborn Borough and
the death-rates per 1,000 (crude and corrected for sex and age distribution of the
Holborn population in comparison with London) and the corresponding rates for
London, for the 11 years 1903-1913, inclusive.