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1869—70.
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
Medical Officer of Health.
1 On the Sanitary Condition of the Metropolis Page2
2 The Birth-rate in St. Giles District „3
3 The Death-rate in St. Giles District ,, 3.
4 Comparison of the Death-rate in relation to Birth-rate and, Population „ 4.
5 The Death-rate among Infants in St. Giles ,,6.
6 The Death-rate among Persons at all ages „7.
7 The Causes of Mortality in St. Giles District „ 8.
8 Zymotic Diseases „ 9.
9 The Mortality in the Sub-districts of St. Giles „11.
10 The Mortality in the Workhouse and other Local Institutions ,, 12.
11 The Sanitary Work of the year ,, 15.
12 Cow-sheds, &c „ 16.
13 Tables appended
To the Board of Works for the St. Giles District.
Gentlemen,
1 have the honour to present to you my Annual Report on the
Sanitary Condition of the District, and the work done during my first
year of office. Your Board is charged with the administration of one of
the most important districts of the Metropolis. It is among the oldest,
most densely peopled, and most deteriorated portions of London. One
half of the District is inhabited not only by the humblest class of
labourers, many of whom are habitual paupers, but also by a colony of Irish
families, who, reared in the wretched cots of their own country, are destitute
of any notion of the proper use of the domestic appliances instituted for
cleanliness and decency in towns. Besides these a considerable number of
tramps and others, who lead a nomade life in London, make St. Giles their
head quarters.
The obstacles which your Board encounters in its efforts to carry
out a good sanitary system, spring from the ignorance and apathy of
these classes. The fault, however, is not entirely theirs. Many of the
houses in St. Giles so occupied arc quite unsuitable for the accommodation
of the large numbers who crowd into them. They are generally small,
having eight rooms each, and were built at a time when ignorance as to the
importance to health of ample space, good ventilation and domestic cleanliness,
was the rule among all classes; when the legislature itself was indifferent to
the subject, and public hygiene as a science, did not exist. These houses
have, for the greater part, a family in every room. In King Street, Drury
Lane, for example, there are 254 families in 27 3 rooms; in Lincoln Court,
164 families in 168 rooms; in Little Wild Street, 139 families in 182 rooms;
and in Wild Court, 109 families in 116 rooms. This close-packing of the
population, in small houses themselves too closely placed to allow of an
adequate circulation of air, of necessity generates disease and induces a high
mortality. Under these circumstances, our most energetic efforts to raise the
standard of health in the District cannot be so successful as we desire.