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happens that children are prescribed for by druggists, and it is only when the children are
in a dying state that they are taken to a medical practitioner. The most common cause
assigned for the death of children who have not been attended by a medical practitioner is
convulsions. Now, convulsions may be occasioned by the use of opiates, by improper food, by
foul air generated in ill-ventilated apartments, and from other causes over which a man of
science would have had sufficient control had the suffering child been brought to him in the
early stage of the disease, and its life might have been saved; but the struggle for existence
among the poor is sometimes so great that mothers have not time, neither have they ability
from defective education, to devote sufficient time or skill to the welfare of their infant
children.
The deaths in the Workhousa were 120, of which 40 or 33.3 per cent. were occasioned
by fever. The cases of illness in the Workhouse were 876, of which number Mr. Champneys
attended 445, including 14 of diarrhoea, and 182 of fever, and Mr. Richardson attended 448
including 2 of measles, 5 of diarrhoea, and 141 of fever. The deaths from fever in the
Workhouse are in the proportion to the cases as 1 to 8. The cases of illness attended by the
Medical Officers of the Onion, exclusive of those in the Workhouse, were 3,409. In this
number are included 258 cases of fever, 302 cases of Febricula or slight fever, 200 diarrhcea,
113 of measles, and 20 of small-pox.
Several cases of fever were removed to the Workhouse from the Common Lodginghouses,
especially from those situated in Spitalfields. Upwards of 40 cases are recorded by
Mr. Blackwell as having been seen by him in the Common Lodging-houses in his district.
Cases of fever are for the most part removed from these Lodging-houses so soon as they are
seen by a medical man, thus preventing the possibility of the disease spreading by contagion.
The owners of the Common Lodging-houses are liable to a penalty for not giving immediate
notice to the police of the existence of any case of fever in them, and in some instances they
have been summoned before the Magistrate and been fined for this neglect of duty. Although
a great many cases of fever have been removed from these Lodging-houses, it does not follow
that the disease is generated in them. They are open to all wanderers who have a few pence
to pay for their night's lodging, and many of the tramps who enter them have had the
symptoms of fever upon them for several hours, or perhaps days, before applying for admission.
These houses are well looked after by the police, and every precaution is taken by them to
prevent the spread of any contagious disease.
In my last report I stated that the inhabitants of Tuson's Court, Spitalfields, were
entirely deprived of water, in consequence of the Water Company refusing to continue any
longer the supply, as the landlord had not paid the water rate. I am sorry to say that up to
this time, now a period of about four months, the inhabitants have been obliged to obtain
water from the neighbouring courts. This circumstance has induced me to draw your special
attention to the water Supply as provided generally for the poor of the district. It is
impossible to over-estimate the importance to the health, comfort, and moral condition of the
inhabitants of large towns and crowded neighbourhoods being supplied with a sufficient
quantity of pure water for domestic use. The fact is on record, that, where persons living in
the poorer localities of large towns have had an efficient supply of water in the immediate