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[No. 6.
REPORT
ON THE
HEALTH OF PADDINGTON
DURING THE HALF-YEAR ENDING
LADY-DAY, 186 2,
BY J. BURDON SANDERSON, M.D.,
Medical Officer of Health.
PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE VESTRY.
Population of Paddington, April, 1861 75,807.
Vestry Hall; May, 1861.
During the two Quarters ending December 28th, 1861 and March 29th,
1862, the number of persons dying in Paddington were respectively 314 and
421. The corresponding numbers for the winter of 1860-61 were 315 and 435.
It thus appears that the past season has been more favourable to the public
health than the preceding, a fact which we of course cannot attribute to sanitary
improvement, but to the comparative mildness of the weather, in
consequence of which bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs have been far
less fatal to adults than usual. The difference would have been much greater
had it not been that all those diseases which are dependent on septic contamination
of the air have been more prevalent throughout the metropolis, and that
fever in particular, has destroyed more than twice its usual number of victims.
This being the case, it is not surprising that the children who inhabit our
mewses and more crowded streets, have suffered severely. Table II. shews that
the mortality from diseases of the lungs among such children was more than three
times as great as among their neighbours under more favourable conditions, but
still subject to town influences. The chest diseases of adults mainly arise from
exposure to cold, and are most fatal, as we have seen, in severe winters. Those
of children who live in stable-dwellings and overcrowded tenements, are
produced by foul air, and are associated in their work of destroying life, with
whooping cough and measles, to both of which maladies they lend their most
formidable symptoms. The comparison of the first with the second column of
our table (Table II.) shews how much of this loss of life is "preventible"—
how much of it is due to the agency of causes which the increasing appreciation
of the value of preventive measures, will some day enable us to neutralize. Few
of these causes are more general in their operation than the occupation of
habitations communicating directly with stables or cow-houses. Even under
the most favourable circumstances it does not appear possible for human beings
to live under the same roof with animals without injury to health; how much
more if the floor is constructed of porous brickwork, soaked with putrescent
ordure—if the sleeping-room is only separated by wood-work from the cow-house
or stable—if ventilation is not merely neglected, but constructively impossible.
There are many families in Paddington who reside in dwellings of this description:
in several instances which have come under my notice during the last few weeks,
it has appeared to me not to admit of doubt, that this circumstance has
determined the fatal issue of attacks of scarlatina, measles or whooping cough,
which would otherwise have been recovered from. The life which would have
successfully resisted the specific infection alone, yielded to the additional virulence
of an atmosphere, rendered at once irritating to the air passages, and
depressing to the system, by putrid emanations.