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9
SIXTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH.
TO THE BOARD OF WORKS, FULHAM DISTRICT.
Gentlemen,
Tlie various Reports winch I had the honor of presenting to you
from time to time last year, during the Small Pox epidemic, have almost
exhausted the history of our Sanitary condition for that year.
With the exception of Small Pox, no Zymotic disease held sway
in the Fulham District in 1871 ; indeed, even with the 64 deaths as
registered arising from the former, the total number of deaths from the
Zymotic class of diseases did not exceed the average of the last three
years. As compared with 1870, the deaths from Measles were 26 against
46 in that year; and from Scarlet Fever, only 33 against 136 in 1870;
whilst the mortality from other forms of fever did not exceed the average
of the last three years, even with our yearly increasing population. It
will, indeed, be a point of some importance to observe during the next
few years the effects of increased density of population on our general
Sanitary condition.
According to the Registrar-General, " the decennial increase of
population in the whole of London, which had been 21.2 and 18.7 percent.
in the two decades, 1841-51 and 1851-61, further declined to 16.1
per cent. between 1861-71. In the central group of districts—including,
besides the City, St. Giles's, Strand, and Ilolborn—the population had
decreased 12.8 per cent, between 1861-71 ; while the increase was 11.9
in the East, 21.6 in the North, 22.5 in the West, and 25.2 in the South
groups of districts. It is but natural that the increase of population
should be largest where the density of population is smallest, that is,
where there still exists most land still uncovered with buildings. We
may, therefore, fairly expect that the largest increase during the present
decade will occur in Hammersmith and Fulham in the West, Hampstead