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

Kensington 1881

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

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13
an accidental pollution of water, or to a contaminated milk supply—
and the same observation in respect of milk applies equally in the
case of scarlet fever also.
These and like circumstances must be kept steadily in view if
we would draw sound conclusions from a high or a low rate of
prevalence of this or that disease, or class of diseases, especially
in relation to the sanitary condition of a district.
Subject to corrections for climatic conditions, and for high rates
in previous years, the concurrence of a low zymotic rate with a low
general death-rate, furnishes just grounds for satisfaction; and as
the general and the zymotic rates were both below the average in
1881, to that satisfaction we are fairly entitled.
It need hardly be said, on the other hand, that a persistently
high rate of mortality from zymotic diseases is always a subject
for serious consideration; but, as we shall see in due course,
Kensington has hitherto been in the happy position of having a
death-rate from these diseases much below that of the Metropolis
generally.

Table: The subjoined table 1 sets out necessary particulars of the mortality from the principal zymotic diseases in 1881, together with the decennial average, &c.:—

The subjoined table 1 sets out necessary particulars of the mortality from the principal zymotic diseases in 1881, together with the decennial average, &c.:—

Diseases.Sub-districts.In Hospitals.Totals in 1880.Decennial Average.
Town.BromptonTown.BromptonTotals(uncorrected)(corrected).
Small-pox942715551134.038.6
Measles4819......677565.974.9
Scarlet Fever219713810557.265.0
Diphtheria44......82218.020.4
Whooping Cough787......859587.699.6
Typhus Fever2.........2436.441.3
Enteric Fever1264...2225
Smple Con. Fever41......55
Diarrhœa9011......101128120.8137.3
268613816383469420477

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From the above table we learn that the deaths from small-pox
alone were in excess of the corrected decennial average, the deaths
* The figures in the table do not exactly tally with the figures in the RegistrarGeneral's
Annual Summary, deaths at the Marylebone Infirmary having been
disregarded, and two known deaths from scarlet-fever not registered under that
heading having been added.