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 Kensington]
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(by some called the "bull's-eye") and three outer rings a quarterof-a-mile
in width. The whole of the "Special Area" is within
the borough of Chelsea, which comprises the parishes of Chelsea,
Fulham, Hammersmith, and Kensington, but Chelsea lies outside
the inner or quarter-mile circle. The number of houses in this
inner circle, in 1881, was 432, and the number in the several
rings from within, outwards, was 3,488, 4,224, and 3,569, giving
a total of 11,713 houses in the "Special Area" without distinction
of parishes.
It has been already stated that 177 cases of small-pox were
recorded in Kensington in 1884; 101 of them in South Kensington
(population 85,000), which includes the whole of the
Kensington portion of the "Special Area," in which there were 60
known cases of small-pox, as compared with 117 in the remainder
of the parish. Of the 60 cases 10 were within the inner quarter
mile circle, and 20,10 and 20 in the three outer quarter-mile rings.
Not knowing, the number of houses or of inhabitants in the
Kensington portion of the special area, and having insufficient
information as to Chelsea and Fulham cases, I am unable
to give per centages of cases to population; but as regards
Kensington the cases were more numerous, relatively, in the
special area than in other parts of the parish, and more numerous,
(few as they were) in the inner circle than in the remainder of the
special area. Especially will this be found to be the case if we
take "per centages of houses newly invaded," after Mr. Power's
method. There are about 170 streets in the Kensington part
of the special area; the 60 cases occurred in 46 houses in 40
streets. In each of 35 streets one house only was invaded; in
two streets two houses were invaded; in two streets three houses;
and in one street four houses. In the remaining streets—130 in
number— there was, so far as I know, no small-pox. Three cases
occurred in Ifield Road—the street nearest to the hospital—at
intervals of two and four months. This street is about 530
yards in length, contains 155 houses, and has a population of
probably 1,500 to 2,000. In previous years, since the hospital
was opened in 1877, Ifield Road had more cases of small-pox