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
St Giles (Camden) 1857
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]
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The proportion of the population of each district that died in the Workhouse,
was, in 1857, largest in St. Giles, more than twice as large as in the town generally,
(45-7 and 21*4 per 10,000 inhabitants.) This follows, of course, from the poverty of
the district, and from difference in the way of distributing medical relief.
The district was also at the bottom of a list which was made to compare the
deaths of the year in the Infirmary with the census of the Workhouse, but here the
same reasons deprive the enquiry of its significance, the tendency in St. Giles being
stronger than elsewhere, to give in-door relief rather than out-door.
Each street is separately examined in the appendix, and the following is the general result:—
D
| MORTALITY IN 1857. | Number of foregoing Deaths which occurred in Workhouse | Zymotic Diseases, (not fatal,) brought under notice of Medical Officer of Health. | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zymotic Diseases. | Comsumptive Diseases. | All Causes. | |||
| 100 Common Lodging Houses | 60 | 33*3 | 1060 | 62*1 p.c. | 24 2 |
| 10nOther houses in the same ( streets | 13*2 | 79.0 | 10.0 p.c. | 57-3 | |
The deaths from all causes in common lodging houses, in 1857, including those
taken thence to the workhouse and to hospitals, are found to have exceeded the
deaths in the other houses around them, in the ratio of 11 to 8. As would be expected,
the disparity on the workhouse death-roll is incomparably more striking ; indeed
three-fifths of the whole number of deaths referrible to common lodging houses,
are found on that register; while of those deaths which are placed to the account of
other houses in the same streets, one-eighth part only appears on the death-book of
the workhouse.
It will be seen that zymotic disease was less rife in the common lodging houses
than in the neighbouring houses. From a hundred ordinary houses in Charles Street,
Church Lane, Queen Street, and elsewhere, two-and-a-half times the zymotic cases
came to my notice, as from the same number of common lodging houses in the same
streets. It would further appear likely, that even where zymotic disease has
occurred in these houses, it has not been so fatal as if it had broken out in the houses
around, for the number of Zymotic deaths in common lodging houses, is only one-fourth
(not one-half or one-third as of the cases of disease) of the number in contiguous
houses.
The disease, which in 1857 did especially affect common lodging houses more
than their neighbours, was consumption. The reason of this will be evident from what
lias been stated concerning the class of persons who use the common lodging houses.