London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972
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Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
Hackney 1861
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]
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11
The mortality of Hackney district, as usual, indicates a higher
standard of health than that for the whole of London, as the
population on April 1st, 1861, having been 83,188, it would probably
be on July 1st, (the mean day of the year) about 83,570.
Now as the number of deaths belonging to Hackney was 1,592,
it follows that the rate of death was 10 in each 523 inhabitants, or
only 1.91 per cent.
The number of nuisances removed during the year by Mr. Valentine, partly under my direction, have been in excess of those abated in 1859 and 1860. As usual I present them in a classified list:—
| Privies emptied, filled up, and drained into the Sewer | 300 |
| Privies and Cesspools emptied | 95 |
| Stable, Pig, Cow-dung, and other refuse removed | 232 |
| Premises repaired and limewashed | 252 |
| Gulleys trapped, Roads cleansed, &c | 27 |
| Pig removed, and Pigsties repaired and cleansed | 79 |
| Choked Drains cleansed, repaired, and re-constructed | 294 |
| Other Nuisances | 138 |
| Total | 1417 |
The list of sanitary improvements effected, indicates a part only
of the sanitary work performed; as a very large number of
premises are inspected on which no nuisances are detected, and
which do not therefore appear in the above Table. This untabulated
work increases every year, for as the sanitary condition of
the district becomes improved, more inspections are made in
proportion to the nuisances discovered, than obtained during the
first years of working the Metropolis Local Management Act; but
it is only by repeated and careful inspections of the dwellings of
the poor, and an inculcation at those visits of the necessity for
keeping clean their rooms, that epidemic diseases can be kept in
check.
The last part of my Report consists of a Table and Summary of
the weather during 1861.