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36
SMALL-POX HOSPITALS AND THEIR ALLEGED EVIL
INFLUENCE ON THE HEALTH OF THE PEOPLE IN
SURROUNDING DISTRICTS.
The Registrar.General in his "Annual Summary" has made
some highly interesting and suggestive observations on the above
subject, deduced from the mortality returns. The deaths from
small-pox in the Metropolis in 1881 were 2,371, "giving a rate of
0.12 per 1,000" persons living.
"Only on seven occasions had this rate been exceeded in the
previous 43 years; and the prevalence of this disease was the more
remarkable, inasmuch as neither the rest of England and Wales, nor
anyone of the other large Towns was similarly affected; moreover the
same unhappy pre-eminence in regard of small-pox had been displayed by
the Metropolis for several preceding years. At the same time it may be
noted that, whatever may have been the cause of the recent greater
prevalence of small-pox in London than in the other great towns, it was
not one which past experience shows to be permanently characteristic of
the Metropolis. For if a sufficiently long series of years be taken, as for
instance, the decennium 1871-80, it is found that London so far from
heading the 20 great towns when ranged in the order of this smallpox
rate, came eighth in the list."
I may here state that in a Memorandum accompanied with a
table, submitted to the Hospitals Commission, I attempted
to account for the facts to which the Registrar-General adverts:
the explanation being that since 1875 the appointment of Medical
Officers of Health in all parts of England under the Public Health
Act, 1875, and the unity of sanitary administration in each of the
great towns, London excepted, has led to the disclosure of outbreaks
of small-pox, and to efficient measures for the isolation of
the sick and consequent stamping-out of the disease. There
has been a marked decline in small-pox mortality in the
nineteen towns coming next in population after London, in the
quinquennium 1876-80 as compared with 1871-75, which I cannot
otherwise account for: the bad pre-eminence of London on the
other hand being due, as I believe, to divided sanitary administration,
which, however, is better than none at all, as the history of the
nineteen towns, qua small-pox, prior to 1875, would go to prove.