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28
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH
latter especially so; although the former is not nearly so frequent as formerly,
because everyone who has it feels a horror of and is ashamed of it, and everyone
who knows the fact avoids him? But why this horror of the itch, which
does the body no harm? and why is there no terror at zymotic diseases,
which stamp their mortal mark upon all who are affected with them? Why
this seclusion from society, and this washing, or even destruction, of clothes
in the case of the itch, and the perfectly uninterrupted intercourse of those
whose clothes are satured with a vile and fatal poison as in the case of
zymotic diseases? In former times the itch abounded among all classes, and
even reached royalty; in our times zymotic disease still does so. Let us,
then, shrink with horror at the name of zymotic disease as we do at that of
the itch. Let no one go abroad who has suffered from these complaints in
clothes which have not been thoroughly purified by either washing or
baking.* Let those who will continue to go out under such circumstances
feel that they are committing an enormous crime, for there can scarcely be a
greater crime than that of secretly infecting a fellow-creature with a mortal
disease; it differs only from that of secret poisoning in being done more
frequently and without fear of punishment. A strikingly reckless means by
which infectious diseases are propagated is the conveyance of infected persons
to hospitals, &c., in public conveyances. The evils resulting from the
practice are too well-known to require further notice; but it is truly
astonishing that an enlightened Parliament should not long since have
legislated for its prevention.
The number of deaths registered as occurring from zymotic diseases in
Clerkenwell during the first quarter of the present year appears small, viz.,
78, almost exactly one-fifth; but, as I have stated, this number gives no
idea of the real number dying of these diseases, but only those who die from
them at once.
In all England about 100,000 individuals die directly from these maladies.
But we obtain a very slight idea of the degree to which the population is
kept down, by saying that even 100,000 persons die annually at once of
zymotic diseases, for the sum is one of compound interest: many of those
who die would have become parents of families, and all these families
are pre-destroyed.
Let us compare this mortality with that from cholera. Every one has
heard of the cholera; the very name strikes terror, and this terror has
undoubtedly been the principal means of the institution of legal sanitary
proceedings. But the mortality produced by cholera is quite insignificant in
comparison with that arising from other zymotic diseases. The year in
which cholera produced the greatest mortality in England was 1849, when
53,273 persons died of it. But even in this same year, 1849, 84,496
persons died at once of the other zymotic diseases; and, when we recollect
that the annual mortality from cholera, or other diseases registered under that
head, amounts to about 1000, whilst the annual mortality arising from the
other zymotic diseases is about 90,000, we see that, in fact, the cholera is a
comparatively insignificant disease.
But the cholera has still been significant, and its ravages have done service;
for it mostly happens that it abounds in those localities in which sanitary
conditions are in the most unsatisfactory state; and its course being short
*I recommended the Vestry to provide some suitable form of bakehouse for
purifying articles of clothing, bedding, &c., which would be injured by washing.