Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Woolwich]
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34. The following table gives the death rate per 1,000 population from Measles in each parish for the past 13 years, compared with London:—
Woolwich. | Plumstead. | Eltham. | London. | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Year. | No. | Rate. | No. | Rate. | No. | Rate. | Rate. |
1891 | 26 | 0.63 | 33 | 0.62 | 0.43 | ||
1892 | 16 | 0.39 | 19 | 0.35 | 0.79 | ||
1893 | 14 | 0.34 | 47 | 0.84 | 0.38 | ||
1894 | 39 | 0.95 | 20 | 0.35 | 0.76 | ||
1895 | 6 | 0.14 | 24 | 0.41 | 0.60 | ||
1896 | 72 | 1.75 | 68 | 1.14 | 0.82 | ||
1897 | 1 | 0.02 | 3 | 0.05 | 0.43 | ||
1898 | 53 | 1.27 | 59 | 0.94 | 0.69 | ||
1899 | 13 | 0.32 | 3 | 0.04 | 0.48 | ||
1900 | 29 | 0.69 | 46 | 0.68 | 0.43 | ||
Average, 10 years | 0.65 | 0.54 | 0.58 | ||||
1901 | 11 | 026 | 9 | 0.13 | 1 | 0.14 | 0.43 |
1902 | 10 | 0.24 | 31 | 0.43 | 0 | — | 0.51 |
1903 | 8 | 0.19 | 14 | 0.20 | 3 | 0.28 | 0.40 |
The reduction in the deaths from Measles in Woolwich and
Plum8tead during the past three years is most striking and
satisfactory, being equivalent to an annual saving of 38 lives,
compared with the measles mortality in the previous ten years;
it is, I believe, due as much to diminished fatality as to
lessened spread of infection, and no doubt the efforts made to
enlighten parents by leaflets and the educational effect of the
application to measles of certain sections of the Public Health
(London) Act, have been productive of much good. Exposure
of a case of Measles is now penal equally with that of Smallpox.
This is a reform I have advocated for ten years.