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) 1858
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]
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in 185S, per 10,000 living. The southern sub-district, however, shows the most
striking improvement, the deaths having fallen from 357 to 291 in the 10,000.
I have before insisted on the unsuitableness of the registration sub-districts, for
the purposes of an accurate investigation into the localization of disease. They are too
large, and too compound in their nature; and the existence of the workhouse, with its
peculiar kind of residents, in one sub-district, produces a disturbing influence which
needs to be eliminated. In my General Report of 1857, I sketched out a division of
our district, which I afterwards employed in examining the mortality of that year; the
practical advantage of this minuter analysis was considerable even last year, but it is
incomparably greater now, as it will enable us to institute a trustworthy and exact comparison
between the two years, in every group of streets, both in respect of their total
mortality, and of the chief diseases prevailing in them.
The boundaries of these ten sub-divisions are indicated on the diagram which
accompanies this report; and in this diagram a summary of the following facts is
readily presented to the eye. The population, and the number of bouses of each
locality, has been ascertained since last year, and is shown on the diagram. The
greater accuracy which has thus become possible, has been extended to 1857, by a
review of the corresponding facts of that year.
The order of the ten sub-divisions, in regard of their general healthiness, may
be tested by the relative number of deaths from all causes occurring in each.
The following table is arranged in this order for 1858; the total number of
deaths in each locality being shown, with the mortality on equal populations calculated
for 1857, as well as for the year more immediately under review.
Ten Sub-Divisions of St. Giles's; their Order of Mortality from all causes, 1858.*
| Order of Sequence, 1858. | Locality of | Actual number of Deaths, 1858. | Per 10,000 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| In Houses. | In Works. | In Hosps. | 1857 | 1858 | ||
| Best 1st. | L Lincoln's Inn Fields | 33 | 0 | 3 | 220 | 144 |
| 2nd. | B Russell Square | 74 | 0 | 5 | 132 | 166 |
| 3rd. | A Bedford Square | 61 | 0 | 3 | 187 | 179 |
| 4th. | D Bloomsbury Square | 121 | 2 | 3 | 192 | 189 |
| 5th. | C Coram Street | 120 | 9 | 4 | 195 | 207 |
| 6th. | K Southern Drury Lane | 113 | 12 | 7 | 241 | 261 |
| 7th. | E Church Lane | 118 | 21 | 5 | 281 | 283 |
| 8th. | G Short's Gardens | 152 | 27 | 14 | 349 | 295 |
| 9th. | 11 Northern Drury Lane | 105 | 37 | 11 | 404 | 303 |
| Worst 10th. | F Dudley Street | 225 | 36 | 15 | 377 | 355 |
| Workhouse Inmates | — | 65 | 1 | — | — | |
| Total District | 1122 | 209 | 71 | 286 | 258 | |
* In this and the following tables, a correction of small amount should have been
made, for the different duration of the two years. It is well worth remark in the above table
how closely the arrangements of these sub-divisions, according to their total death-rate,
coincides with the order in which they furnished deaths to the Workhouse death-book. The
trifling exception formed by the precedence of the Northern Drury Lane locality over Dudley
Street and its neighbourhood, is accounted for at once by the numbers of common Lodging
Houses in the former district.