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WH 14
Board of Works, Whitechopel District:
FIRST QUARTERLY REPORT
ON THE
Sanitary Condition
OF
THE WHITECHAPEL DISTRICT,
BY
JOHN LIDDLE,
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
Read to the Board 13th October, 1856.
Gentlemen,
On my appointment as the Medical Officer of Health to the Whitechapel
District, your Board resolved that I should prepare a report upon the sanitary
state of the district every week. For the first sixteen weeks, from the date
of my appointment, (25th February, 1856), I regularly furnished such report.
Your Board then directed that I should prepare a quarterly, instead of a
weekly report, and resolved, that those hitherto presented, should be continued
under the title of" weekly statements."
By this arrangement, the reports intended for publication will not be
encumbered with matter of a mere passing interest, but will contain such
information only, as may be considered sufficiently important to engage the
attention of the rate-payers generally.
In my first report or statement, dated 3rd March, 1856, I suggested a
plan of operations, whereby I hoped to bring regularly under your notice, lstly,
The weekly mortality of the district, 2ndly, The amount of sickness arising
from zymotic diseases among the poor, and 3rdly, The work done by your
Inspectors of Nuisances.
I regret that I have not as yet furnished you with a detailed report of
the mortality of the district, but I expect shortly to have it in my power to do
so ; as I believe that the Registrar General is about to make such arrangements
in his office, that each Medical Officer of Health will have weekly, not only
an account of the mortality of his district, but information respecting the
cause of death of each individual. I have hitherto procured the information
relative to the mortality of the district, which I have from time to time laid
before you, from the published returns of the Registrar General.