London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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St Pancras 1888

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Pancras, Metropolitan Borough]

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St. Pancras, Middlesex.
THIRTY-THIRD ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH,
BEING THE REPORT FOR THE YEAR 1888
TO THE VESTRY OF ST. PANCRAS.
Gentlemen,
In comparing the statistics of St. Pancras for 1888 with former years, it
is seen that the death-rate is by far the lowest yet recorded, having fallen below
19 per 1000, and that the birth-rate is also decreasing from year to year.
All the tables in the body of the Report and those appended to it have been
corrected by the inclusion of parishioners and exclusion of non-parishioners, and
by the distribution of the births and deaths not referable to any particular SubDistrict
to the various Registrar's Sub-Districts according to population.
As in the previous year, the insertion of many tables in the text has been
avoided by placing them in an Appendix at the end of the Report, especially the
tables worked out in detail for the Registration Sub-Districts.
A new feature at the extreme end of the Report, to which your special
attention is directed, is the spot map, on a scale of 9 inches to the mile, of infectious
diseases occurring in the District.
The proximity of the blocks of houses and the narrowness of the intervening
spaces give an approximate idea of the density of population and its distribution.
The absence of general notification of infectious diseases doubtless materially
affects the appearance of the maps, but nevertheless some lessons may be learnt
from the compilation.
Smallpox calls for no remark.
Typhoid, or Enteric Fever, on the other hand, deserves careful observation. It
will be noticed that the brown spots of Typhoid cluster round definite centres.
For instance, there is such a cluster in the centre of the northern half of the
Gray's Inn Lane Sub-District, south of the east end of the Euston road; again,
there is another such cluster in the centre of that part of the Somers Town SubDistrict
lying between Seymour Street and Pancras Road; again, there is another
but smaller cluster in the southern part of the Regent's Park Sub-District, just
north of the west end of the Euston Road; again, there is a larger but more