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

View report page

Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London

Shoreditch 1913

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Shoreditch]

This page requires JavaScript

Table: Subjoined is a list of the infectious diseases which are notifiable, excluding pulmonary tuberculosis, showing the numbers of cases certified in the Borough for each of the four quarters of the year, and the numbers and percentage of the cases removed to hospital:—

Subjoined is a list of the infectious diseases which are notifiable, excluding pulmonary tuberculosis, showing the numbers of cases certified in the Borough for each of the four quarters of the year, and the numbers and percentage of the cases removed to hospital:—

Disease.First Quarter.Second Quarter.Third Quarter.Fourth Quarter.Total.Deaths.
Small Pox..................
Scarlet Fever or Scarlatina3042921763403
Diphtheria and Membranous Croup1842695218114
Typhus..................
Cholera..................
Enteric Fever (Typhoid)5243141
Continued Fever......1...1...
Relapsing Fever..................
Puerperal Fever...13594
Erysipelas212247611519
Plague..................
Cerebro-Spinal Fever3......143
Glanders..................
Anthrax..................
Hydrophobia..................
Acute Anterior Poliomyelitis...15281
Ophthalmia Neonatorum815822...
Totals8511122630873035
Numbers and percent-ages of cases removed to hospitals.5689172247564...
65.8%80%76%80%77%...

Text

Copy text to clipboard

As compared with the figures for 1912 there was a marked increase in the
numbers of cases of scarlet fever and diphtheria, the former being more than twice
as numerous. The deaths from the principal zymotic diseases which are notifiable,
namely, small pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria and enteric fever were at the rate of
016 per 1,000 population, whereas the rate for the principal zymotic diseases which
are not notifiable, namely measles, whooping cough and diarrhoea was 2'81 or more
than twelve times as great.
Although the cases of notifiable infectious disease were more numerous than
in 1912, they were none the less below the average.
ISOLATION OF INFECTIOUS CASES.
Cases of small pox, scarlet fever, and diphtheria removed to hospital, with
very few exceptions, are taken to the hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylums Board.
Cases of enteric fever, puerperal fever, and erysipelas not infrequently go into the