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REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH,
For the Quarter ending 2nd January, 1875.
To the Board of Works, Whitechapel District.
Gentlemen,
Having been deprived for the last two months of the local
Registrars' weekly returns of mortality, I am unable to lay before you a
quarterly account of the births, deaths, and causes of death, in the form
which, for several years, I have adopted, and which 1 have found to be well
suited for the purposes of reference and comparison. It is of importance,
not only that the causes of death should be recorded, but that the ages at
death should be duly registered.
Nevertheless, I am enabled, by the aid of the weekly and quarterly
returns of mortality, and the annual summary of the births, deaths, and
causes of death in London, which are regularly published by the Registrar
General, to make you acquainted with the total mortality of your District,
and with the deaths from the several epidemic diseases, some of which are
always more or less prevalent.
I am also enabled, by the privilege which is afforded to me by the Board
of Guardians, to peruse the books of the Medical Officers of the Union,
which are placed every Saturday for my inspection in the Board Room of the
"Workhouse, to lay before you a return of all cases of sickness occurring
among the out-door paupers. From the examination of these books I
ascertain the localities in which contagious and infectious diseases exist; and,
by the courtesy of Mr. Vallance, I can supplement the returns of the deaths
from small-pox, scarlet fever, and fever, which are recorded in this District
of those patients who were removed to, and died in, the Metropolitan
Asylums, but whose deaths are not recorded, as they should be, in this
District, but are registered in the Districts of the respective Asylums.
Having for the last eighteen years been favored by the Registrar General
with the weekly returns of the local Registrars, after such returns had been