View report page

Gentlemen,
During the five weeks ending upon the 25th of June, the births of sixty children
were registered in this district.
During the same period thirty-eight deaths have been registered; a number a little
above the average for the last four years, but less than the number registered during four
weeks last year.
The mortality in some parts of the district has been small. Thus, in Lewisham no
death has been registered since the 4th of June; and in Blackheath and Penge the health
of the inhabitants, as evidenced by the returns of mortality, has been favourable. In
Sydenham twenty deaths have been registered, a number greatly above the average.
Scarlet fever has been prevalent in parts of the district, with a few cases of smallpox,
and hooping cough still continues.
Zymotic disease has destroyed eleven lives; nine deaths from this cause have occurred
in Sydenham, and two in the Blackheath Ward.
The localities in which this mortality has occurred arc as under:—
Blackheath.—Lewis Cottage, Scarlet fever.
Bridget Place, Intermittent fever.
Sydenham.—West Kent Park, Scarlatina, malignant, 24th May.
Ditto, Malignant scarlet fever, 24th May.
Ditto, ditto, 29th May.
Perry Hill, ditto, 5th June.
Sydenham Park, Hooping cough, 5th June.
Kirk Dale, ditto, 5th June.
West Kent Park, Malignant scarlet fever, 12th June.
Wells Road ditto, 14th June.
Bell Green, Croup, 19th June.
I have several times brought the state of West Kent Park under the notice of the
Board since 1856. It is still of the utmost importance to pay some attention to its
sanitary requirements. Most of the houses arc inefficiently drained and offensive; and
the sewer in the North Road requires to be connected with the main in Brockley Road.
Five deaths have occurred in this locality at the end of the North Road, and these
deaths might, in all probability, have been prevented if due attention had been paid to
the state of drainage in the locality. In the house in which the mortality has been
caused, the pipe opening into the cistern from the cesspool is untrapped, and contaminates
the water used for drinking; and cesspools of an offensive kind have existed; added to
which, the gullies are very offensive in the neighbourhood, and the main drain contains
(in my opinion) a quantity of offensive and poisonous sewage.
A similar epidemic to the above prevailed in Lower Sydenham in 1851, since which
the house-drainage in that locality has been but little improved.
I consider it highly objectionable that persons suffering from malignant disease should
be removed to hospital in the ordinary public carriages, as likely to spread disease
indefinitely. A vehicle for such purposes should be provided. (I brought this under
the notice of the Board in 1856.)
The drainage at the back of High Street, Sydenham, is still very imperfect.
Drainage from a slaughter-house runs at the back of the houses in Willow Road.
Drainage is again oozing into the ditch opposite Jew's Walk from Westwood House.
A drain is required at the back of the Forester Inn to communicate with that in
Dartmouth Park; at Mrs. Milton's, Forest Hill Terrace, the neighbour's cesspool,
although partly emptied, is overflowing, offensive, and prejudicial to health.