London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Shoreditch 1904
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch]
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removed being 95.5 as compared with 90.7 in 1903, 93.1 in 1902, 86.3 in 1901, 84.7
in 1900, 82.4 in 1899, 81.4 in 1898, 71.4 in 1897, 65 in 1896, 57 in 1895 and 61 in 1894.
The percentage of removals to hospital from Shoreditch for the year 1904 was, therefore,
higher than it has ever been before.
The percentage of removals has been gradually increasing year by year since 1889, and this increase has
been associated with a gradual decrease in the total number of cases of scarlet fever, diphtheria and enteric fever as the following figures show:
| Period. | Years. | Average Percentages of cases removed. | Average number of cases certified annually. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1890—1894 | 41% | 1082 | |
| 2 | 1895—1899 | 70% | 975 |
| 3 | 1900—1904 | 88% | 6701 |
Comparing the 1st and 3rd periods the percentage of removals per annum is more
than double in the latter what it was in the former, whilst the average number of cases
annually certified has decreased by 400 or 38 per cent. Doubtless there may be influences
at work other than hospital isolation. It is, however, not unreasonable to
hold that the reduction in the amount of notifiable infectious disease to which attention
is directed has been to a considerable extent due to the increased use of the isolation
hospitals by the people of Shoreditch.
Smallpox has not been included with the other notifiable infectious diseases for
the purposes of the above table as it is only occasionally met with now. All cases
of this disease, save those which end fatally before they can be removed, are taken to
hospital.
Arising out of an alleged premature discharge of a patient to Poplar from one of the
Board's hospitals a communication dated June 17th was addressed to the Borough
Councils of the Metropolis on the subject of
RETURN CASES OF SCARLET FEVER,
directing attention to the following facts:—
"At the present time there is an entire want of precise knowledge, both as to the
causation of scarlet fever and also as to the period of infectivity of patients suffering from
the disease and in the absence of definite scientific knowledge it is impossible for anyone
to assert positively that infection has or has not ceased in any given case. Until recently
there was a concensus of opinion that the desquamation which occurs in such cases was
coincident with the infectivity of the, patient and that the cessation of desquamation
could therefore be taken as an indication to determine this latter point; but the Board
*Not including 170 cases of scarlet fever directly traceable to infected milk which occurred in
1901.