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5
CLAPHAM.
Report on the Sanitary Condition of Clapham, for the year 1856,
by Mr. J. McDonogh.
TO THE BOARD OF WORKS FOR THE WANDSWORTH DISTRICT.
Gentlemen,
The census of 1851 gives to this sub-district 16,290 inhabitants.
If this be raised for increase of population, the number would
now amount to about 18,200.
In 1851, the rateable value of property in this parish to the poor was
estimated at £70,167; at the present time it is calculated to amount to
about £82,000. This sub-district, therefore, increases both in population
and rateable value, but not, of course, in area. The area of this
parish, in statute acres, is 1,233, and there has been of late years,
within that area, a considerable increase in the number of houses.
Unavoidably, then, we increase in such evils as are incidental to building
operations. Houses are erected, and new streets formed, without
due regard to sanitary requirements, and in situations where good drainage,
that great desideratum in this sub-district, seems impossible.
The health of this sub-district, compared with that of former years, may
be pronounced to have been unusually good during the year 1850. Several
of the diseases of the zymotic class have prevailed in a malignant form,
but by no means extensively, during the past year. By a careful inspection
of the returns of the District Registrar, I find that 286 deaths,
inclusive of 36 from epidemic diseases, took place in this parish during
1856, and were distributed as follows:—
Lung Diseases (except Phthisis) 39
Phthisis 54
Atrophy, Hydrocephalus, Convulsions
of Children, and
Scrofula 46
All other Diseases 97
Violence, Privation, and Premature
Birth 9
Small Pox 1
Measles 14
Scarlet Fever 9
Hooping Cough 4
Diarrhoea and Dysentery 4
Fever 4
Erysipelas 1
Puerperal Fever 4
These deaths are variously distributed as to age:—
Under 1 year 61
From 1 to 5 29
„ 5 to 10 16
„ 10 to 20 14
From 20 to 40 45
„ 40 to 60 37
„ 60 to 80 65
Upwards of 80 13