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

View report page

Barking 1920

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Barking]

This page requires JavaScript

28
Phthisis 395
Other Tubercular Diseases 246
Total 641
The whole of the notifications received since 1908 have been
followed up and as far as possible their fate ascertained. Systematic
visiting did not commence until 1910. (In the early years notification
was limited to Poor Law cases only.) Confining attention
to this period, 1,040 cases of Pulmonary Tuberculosis have been
notified, 23 per cent, of these may be deducted as the estimated
error of diagnosis, this leaves approximately 800 cases. A further
62 of these have left the district, reducing the total to 740—of
this number a portion have only recently been diagnosed, and
allowing three years as the average period from the onset of this
discomfort to death, another 200 must be deducted, the figure is
thus reduced to 500, and of these 220 arc known to have died. Thu3
280 still survive, most of which are children. (This agrees fairly
well with the number "395" still on the register.) The material
up to the present is hardly sufficient to construct a life table, and
thereby estimate the mean after life time. It does appear as if
50 per cent, of those notified, and about whom two medical men
agree as to the diagnosis, will be dead within three to four years.
This estimate is a low one when compared with that given by
other observers.
The total number of notifications received during the year
under review is below the average, but this condition unfortunately
does not appear to be permanent. The cause as previously given is
dependent on the adverse condition during the war and the
epidemic of Influenza, both tending to remove a number of people
suddenly, who should in the ordinary course of events have been
notified as suffering from this disease in subsequent years. This
state seems at the present time of writing to be passing away.
The age distribution, as will be seen on reference to the
table, differs considerably from the age distribution at death and