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9
The distribution of the disease in St. Pancras is of importance
in relation to the question whether the two neighbouring SmallPox
Hospitals, the one at Highgate, and the other at Hampstead,
have been concerned in its production.
The use for Small Pox of the hospital at Hampstead during the
year 1884, after having been closed for a number of years,
enables a comparison to be made between the distribution of
Small-Pox in St. Pancras at times when the hospital was closed,
and the distribution of the disease during this particular year,
when it was receiving cases of Small Pox.
Now I desire to say at the beginning that I am unable to
report on this important subject as fully as I could wish. The
Hampstead Hospital is situated fully a quarter of a mile beyond
the parish boundary of St. Pancras, and my observations are
necessarily limited to those houses which are in St. Pancras.
The Highgate Hospital is also situated outside the parish
boundary, and here, again, 1 have only before me the behaviour
of Small Pox in St. Pancras. I am, therefore, unable to
discuss the influence of these hospitals on the greater part of the
concentric areas which surround them. The St. Pancras houses,
indeed, constitute but a small portion of those which
surround the hospitals, and I hesitate to draw conclusions of too
detailed or positive a character from an experience which is
limited in the sense I have described. Nevertheless
the facts, such as they are, deserve to be recorded; but it must
be recollected that any statements made here refer only to
houses situated in St. Pancras.
The charts which accompany this report will sufficiently
show the position of the hospitals in relation to St. Pancras houses
and the distribution of Small Pox in the Parish during the
successive years 1880, 1881, 1882,1883, and 1884. Each spot
upon the charts represents the position of a house invaded by
Small Pox, and which became known to the Sanitary Department.
The shading represents the area covered by buildings.
In the first instance it will be well to consider the distribution
of Small Pox in relation to the Hampstead Hospital, which
daring the years 1880, 1881, 1882 and 1883 received no case of
Small Pox, but was opened in May of 1884 for the reception of
persons suffering from this disease.
If circles having respectively ,½,¾ and 1 mile radius be
drawn round the Hampstead hospital as a centre, and the
number of houses in each ring belonging to St. Pancras
counted, it is found they were in each year invaded by Small
Pox in the proportion shown in the following table:—