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
Fulham 1882
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Fulham]
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87
48 cases taken to hospitals 47 were removed by your Board, and
one by the Fulham Board of Guardians. In all of the cases reported
a most careful system of disinfection was carried out by
your Inspector. We may estimate from the number of deaths
registered that there were about 1700 persons attacked by the disease
in this district last year. Seeing that there were only 281 cases
reported it is not surprising that the measures adopted by your
Board, although all that could possibly be done under the circumstances,
should have been ineffectual in stamping out the disease.
Until sanitary law is so amended that all cases shall be immediately
reported and properly isolated, we can not expect to find any
considerable diminution in the present number of cases. The
Metropolitan Asylum Hospital at Fulham which was used for the
reception of small-pox oases being now utilised as a fever hospital
for the isolation of cases of fever from the western districts of
London, it may be of advantage for a list of the streets in which
scarlet fever occurred to be published, also a table showing the
number of cases in each month of the vear.
TABLE VI.
The following table shows the number of cases of small-pox that were reported in each of the parishes of the Fulham District during each of the 12 months of the year 1882; also the number of cases that were treated at hospitals and those that were treated at the residences of the patients.
| Month. | Treated at a Hospital. | Treated at home. | Totals. | Treated at a Hospital | Treated at home | Totals. | Grand Totals. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 |
| February | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| March | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 5 |
| April | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| May | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| June | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| Jully | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| August | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| September | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| October | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| November | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| December | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Total in the year | 5 | 0 | 5 | 9 | 2 | 11 | 16 |
The above table shows that the greatest number of cases occurred
in the month of June. The very reverse takes place in the
case of scarlet fever that occurs with small-pox. There is usually
a very much larger number of cases of scarlet fever in the second
half of the year than in the first. In the latter six months of last