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 1912
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch]
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47
have been erected on the sites of houses which were occupied by persons of the
working class, and are a decided improvement in the neighbourhood. As dwellings
they are in every respect most satisfactory.
The numbers of tenements, rooms and persons in the artisans' dwellings in the Borough, estimated for 1912, are contained in the subjoined table :—
| Number of blocks. | Number of tenements. | Number of rooms. | Number of persons. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class A | 43 | 1884 | 4595 | 6230 |
| Class B | 15 | 379 | 919 | 1750 |
| Total for the whole | 58 | 2263 | 5514 | 7980 |
A decrease was noticeable in the number of unoccupied tenements during the
year. Taking the figures in the above table, the number of rooms per tenement
averages 2.4 for both classes of dwellings, but the number of persons per room
for the Class A is approximately 1.3, as compared with 1.9 for Class B, which may
be taken as an indication of the greater amount of crowding in the Class B as compared
with the Class A dwellings.
The births registered during the year, and the birth-rates in the dwellings as a whole, and the two classes into which they have been divided, are shown below :—
| The whole of the Dwellings. | Class A. | Class B. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number. | Eate per 1,000 Inhabitants. | Number. | Eate per 1,000 Inhabitants. | Number. | Eate per 1,003 Inhabitants. |
| 275 | 34'4 | 184 | 29-5 | 91 | 52 |
The number of births was 70 more than in 1911.
The proportion of deaths attributed to prematurity was at the rate of 7.2
per 1,000 births as compared with 24.4 in 1911, 13.5 in 1910, 11.7 in 1909, 4.3 in
1908, 12 in 1907, 12 in 1906 and 27.5 in 1905. In Class A the deaths from prematurity
amounted to 10.8 per 1,000 births, whilst in Class B they were nil. For
the whole Borough the deaths from prematurity amounted to 21.5 per 1,000 births.
The infantile mortality for the whole of the dwellings was 84 per 1,000 births
as compared with 131 in 1911, 95 in 1910, 113 in 1909, 103 in 1908, 124 in 1907,
97 in 1906 and 140 in 1905. For the Class A dwellings it was 76 as compared