Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel]
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one in twelve. In the London Hospital there are nine foreigners, natives of Russia,
Prussia, Poland, Hanover, Mauritius, and Australia. This valuable institution may
therefore be considered as a hospital for all nations. Of the sixty-four courts and streets
comprised in this sub-district, thirty of them contain a less number of inhabitants than in
1851, thirty-two contain a greater number, and one has the same number. A new street
(Cotton-street), containing 202 persons, has been recently built.
Having thus briefly laid before you a few statistical facts which the late census has
revealed, I shall now proceed to the consideration of the mortality and sickness which have
been recorded in the quarter ending on the 29th June last. In the thirteen weeks comprising
the last quarter, the total number of deaths, including the deaths of 42 non-residents,
was 526, of which number, 267 were males, and 259 females. The births, in the same period,
were 697, viz.: 369 males, and 328 females. The excess of births over deaths, including those
of the non-residents is 213. In the corresponding quarter of 1860, the deaths, excluding those
of the non-residents (52) were 483. The mortality therefore is greater by one in this,
than in the Spring Quarter of last year. The births are eleven in excess, 797 against 686.
The mortality for the quarter is at the annual rate of twenty-two in 1000. For the year ending
June 29th, the rate of mortality (deducting the deaths of 170 non-residents) is twenty-six m
1000, or one in thirty-eight of the entire population, but if we deduct the total deaths in the
London Hospital, then the rate of mortality for the year is twenty-four per 1000, or one in
forty-one of all living. This is a high rate of mortality, arid it shows that there are noxious
causes in operation in this district, which will require the most strenuous efforts of your
sanitary officers to investigate, and, if possible, to remove.
Of the 526 deaths, there are 238, or forty-five per cent. under five years of age, and 113,
or twenty-two per cent. under one year. The proportion of deaths of children under
five years varies in the several sub-districts, as may be seen on refering to Table No. 5. How
many of these children die from the want of pure air it is impossible to tell, as the deaths in
the mortuary returns are all classified under distinct heads of disease, and there is not a column
wherein to record the causes of disease; if there were such a column, the total caused by impure
air would probably be very great. The deaths of persons above eighty years, are 18, or
3.4 per cent. I may here remark that the alleged ages of very old persons ate hot always to
be relied upon; they are sometimes exaggerated, and many aged persons are really ignorant of
the date of their birth. There is, however, recorded the death of one aged person, whose
years numbered 102; she was the widow of a laborer, and the Registrar, Mr. Hodson, writes
"I have good reason to believe that that this age is correctly stated. A daughter is now living
aged eighty-one years. Last year the deceased was brought to the notice of the inhabitants of
this district, by being elected a pensioner in the Norton Folgate Pension Society, in conjunction
with a man living at Wanstead, two years her senior. The committee were satisfied froni
inquiry made, that she was of the age stated.'*
On referring to the table showing the caitses Of death, it will be Seeh that the diseases
of the respiratory organs where fatal to ninety. This number is less by twenty-one than in
the coresponding quarter of last year, but it is greater than that in 1859. Diseases of the
breathing organs seem, to fluctuate with the changes in the temperature of the atmosphere, the
mean temperature of which, during the quarter recently terminated, was 51-6° which is
1-1° greater than in the corresponding quarter of 1860. In both periods, however, it was
below the mean temperature, in each of the three corresponding quarters ot 1857-9, which was
54 degrees. During these last mentioned period?, the deaths from diseases of the lungs, ex*