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confidence submit to the closest inspection and examination. The
sanitary condition of the District is one of efficiency, and there is now
not the slightest ground to modify my former statements that "the
sanitary condition of the District will bear most favourable comparison,
not only with any other eastern portion of the metropolis,
but also with any district in the whole of London, a circumstance of
which all concerned may reasonably feel proud, which shows that the
efforts of the Sanitary Authority to reach a high standard have been
attended with success."
The year 1896 is conspicuous through the absence of any special
features in regard to the public health of Bow, and if the large number
of deaths from measles and whooping cough and the renewed trouble
as to the water supply of the East London Company are excepted
(which are referred to in detail under their respective headings), there
is not anything in the whole of the twelve months which can be
described as abnormal. No other disease reached even approximately
epidemic proportions, and if the number of deaths from measles and
whooping cough had been the same as in 1895, the zymotic death
rate would have been lower than it was in that period—viz., 2.6
against 2.8, lower in fact than has ever been the case since Bow became
a separate sanitary district in 1881. The facts prove that sanitary
effort, constant and well-directed, is telling. Zymotic diseases are
preventable, and this is the reason why so much official care is taken
in recording their incidence and in dealing individually with the cases
as they arise. A lessening in the number of their victims ought to
result from the expenditure of labour and money.
With the exception of Mile End Old Town, the Bow death rate of
20.4 is the lowest of any area in the Eastern District, the figures for
which are, for the whole of the Poplar District, 20.6; for Mile End,
19.9; for Limehouse, 22.9; for St. George's-in-the-East, 24.5; for
Whitechapel, 20.6; for Bethnal Green, 22.1; and for Shoreditch,
21.4. On the average the death-rate for all these districts is