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FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
TO THE
Destry of Saint Leonard, Shoreditch.
GENTLEMEN,
In drawing up my first Quarterly Report on the Health of the Population
of Shoreditch, and the sanitary condition of the district, it will be convenient to arrange
what I have to submit to your consideration under three heads:
I. The Mortality and Health-movement for the three months just terminated.
II. Some further contributions to the Sanitary Survey of the District, in
continuation of those submitted in my Preliminary Report, including
observations on the Soil, Water, and Air.
III. Observations on measures for diminishing the causes of Sickness.
1.—MORTALITY AND SICKNESS.
The information I have to lay before you on the mortality and sickness of the
quarter, is not so complete as I could wish. For the first two or three weeks the
arrangements for obtaining regular reports had not come into operation. I commenced
receiving weekly returns of the Fever-cases attended by the District Medical Officers
on the 19th April; I commenced receiving weekly returns of the cases of Sickness
admitted into the Workhouse, on the 3rd May; since those dates the returns in question
have been made with great regularity. The immediate application of the information
contained in those returns, has been of the greatest practical value, by enabling me in
many instances to diminish causes of sickness in active operation in particular localities.
The future statistical applications will I anticipate be both interesting and important.
The cordial aid I have thus derived from the District Medical Officers—aid voluntarily
undertaken in addition to duties already too laborious and exacting—calls for my
warmest thanks.
The facts relating to the Mortality are derived from the weekly reports issued
by authority of the Registrar-General; these facts do not embrace all that is necessary
to the carrying out of local sanitary administration. It is however anticipated that