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 1880

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hackney]

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4
scarcely think it can depend to any great extent on atmospheric
changes, as the wave periods for all England are
longer, each having lasted for 6 or 7 years. Again, the
epidemic of 1877-78 formed in the Metropolis, the termination
of a six year period, evidently arising from the extremely
small mortality that occurred in 1873, 1874 and 1875. The
oscillation therefore, appears to me to be partly caused by
the larger number of persons susceptible to the disease who
are alive in a given number of the population at one time
than at another; whilst the number of cases and deaths
depends to a very great extent on the proportion amongst the
population of unvaccinated or badly vaccinated persons, as
compared with those who are protected by proper vaccination
and re-vaccination. This part of the subject will be discussed
in another part of the Report.
TABLE I.

Table: LONDON.—Annual Number of Deaths from Small Pox per million population, 1838-80.

LONDON.—Annual Number of Deaths from Small Pox per million population, 1838-80.

Years.Deaths per 1,0011,000.Years.Deaths per 1,000,000.Years.Deaths per 1,000,000.Years.Deaths per 1,000,000.
18381762184922618603161870295
1839344185021318712413
184067318514611861761872538
18524831862121
18415611863693187334
1842188185388187416
184322418542701864182187522
1844887185540318652161876211
185621118664541877719
184543818674351878396
1846121185758
184743518589218681931879126
184872018594201869861880129

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The mean annual death rate will be better shown by
adding together the death rates in each epidemic period and
dividing the product by the number of years contained in
each. This has been done in the following table, which
shows that with the exception of 1838-40 and 1868-72, there
has been a much closer average mortality from this disease
than might have been expected,