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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existed in the other parts of London. As a rule, of course, these cases are only manifestations
of a poison received during a residence elsewhere; but it seems probable
that some of them are actually generated in the town. The question is one of importance,
but can only be solved by a careful cross-examination of the patients themselves.
I have thought it advisable to ascertain how far the diseases which do not go
on to a fatal issue, correspond in their localization with those returned by the Registrar
of deaths. A partial investigation of this kind for the workhouse cases, has produced
the following table, which gives the numbers of the chief zymotic diseases that come
from each of the ten localities into which I have divided St. Giles's.
Distribution of Zymotic Diseases in the Out-Patient practice of the Workhouse, in the Ten Localities of St. Giles's.*
| Zymotic Diseases in Locality of | Small Pox. | Chicken Pox. | Measles. | Scarlet Fever. | Whooping Cough. | Fevers, including cases of febricula visited at home. | Diarrhoea. | Erysipelas. | Ague. | Rheumatic Fever. | Total of foregoing Diseases. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A. Bedford Square | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 0 |
| B. Russell Square | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | 0 |
| C. Coram Street | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 9 | 4 | 1 | — | 3 | 27 |
| D. Bloomsbury Square | — | — | 1 | — | 2 | 2 | 10 | — | — | — | 15 |
| E. Church Lane | — | 3 | 14 | 16 | 12 | 56 | 58 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 171 |
| F. Dudley Street | 5 | 11 | 19 | 29 | 31 | 92 | 118 | 11 | 1 | 11 | 328 |
| G. Short's Gardens | 1 | 17 | 8 | 1 5 | 11 | 74 | 99 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 248 |
| H. Northern Drury Lane | — | 7 | 9 | 15 | 5 | 70 | 94 | 3 | 4 | 3 | 210 |
| K. Southern Drury Lane | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 9 | 49 | 47 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 126 |
| L. Lincoln's Inn Fields | — | — | — | — | — | 5 | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 9 |
| Total District as far as Classified | 12 | 41 | 51 | 77 | 71 | 357 | 431 | 31 | 26 | 34 | 1134 |
Making allowance for the relative pauperism of the different parts of the
district, and for the circumstance that the sick poor who go to the workhouse for
relief, will be more or less numerous as they dwell nearer or farther from the house, we
find that little new information is given us by this table, beyond what we have already
gained from the returns of the Registrar-general. The very large number of cases
coming from Dudley Street and the streets around, will not surprise us, when we
remember the large mortality there. In the northern parts of St. Giles's, and in the
parish of Bloomsbury, the totals are fewer, from there being fewer poor, and from these
localities being relieved by the Bloomsbury Dispensary, and other institutions. The
extreme southern parts are in like manner relieved by the Brewers's Court Dispensary,
and by King's College Hospital, and the Carey Street Dispensary. Hence the
small numbers in the two districts at the end of the list.
Any deductions from this table, as to the relative frequency of the various
diseases in the several parts of St. Giles, would be vitiated by the circumstance just
* The totals of this table will not be found to agree with those of the preceding table, as in
some few occasions I omitted to procure the addresses of the patients, especially of those coming
to the Workhouse with Diarrhoea But though not complete in its totals, yet relatively to the
ten districts the table may be considered perfectly correct.