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56
Medical Officer of Health Annual Report.
As this is the last year of the existence of the
Board of Works for the Wandsworth District, it is
interesting to contrast the condition of the Parish of
Clapham with that obtaining in 1856, when the
important work of the Board was commenced. The
population was then 18,200, now it is 52,932. Comparing
the rates for the first ten years, 1856 to 1865,
with the last ten, 1891 to 1900, we find a mean death.
rate of 17.2, reduced to a mean rate of 13.28, and a
zymotic rate of 3.3 reduced to 2.21. In these early
years, too, we find records of deaths from Typhus Eever,
from Cholera, &c., which, have now quite dropped out
from our Tables.
This means that if the old conditions had prevailed,
some 211 more persons would have died in 1900 than
actually did die, and 53 more persons would have died
from zymotic diseases.
In the early reports of the Medical Officer of Health
for Clapham, there are repeated references to the absence
of proper sewers, the poluting of the soil, the impure
drinking water from wells and pools (there being then no
public supply generally available), so that we find it
difficult to realise the conditions under which the people
of Clapham then existed, though only 44 years ago.
Clearly the able administration of the Board of Works
has not been without avail, not only in increasing the
comforts of the inhabitants, but in preventing many deaths,
and in increasing the average duration of life.
In taking leave of my duties of Medical Officer of
Health after many years service, I would desire to express