Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark]
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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1880—81. 11
closing of the Queen's Bench Prison, and by the Metropolitan Board of Works having
closed many of the houses in the Green Street area, and also in the Mint; and I trust
it will not be long before these areas are completely demolished, and decent houses erected
in their place, but not Industrial dwellings.
The Death rate therefore has been 22—2, which is the same as that given by the
Registrar General for the whole of London; so that I think we can compare] favourably
with the neighbouring Parishes.
The Death rate in the first quarter of the year for the whole of London was 21—8.
So low a Death rate in a corresponding quarter has not been recorded since 1856. This
is the more remarkable on account of the exceptionally severe frosts that prevailed during
the greater part of January, and also an exceptionally heavy fall of snow.
We have a right to infer that this low death rate is in some measure due to the
sanitary efforts of the last few years, especially so when it is borne in mind that the natural
tendency of any large Parish if left to itself is not to become healthier, but to deteriorate,
owing to the increasing density of its population, and the consequent increasing pollution
of the air; and we cannot help looking with anxiety as to the result of massing a large number
of human beings in the huge buildings which are being built near us.
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The principal diseases of the Respiratory organs, viz : Bronchitis and Pneumonia,
caused 168 and 84 deaths respectively, of those 152 were under five years, and 122 over
fifty, showing that thesa diseases appear most fatal at the extremes of life.
TABLE No. 2.
1875-6
1876-7
1877-8
1879-80
1880-81
Bronchitis
192
181
186
260
168
Pneumonia
94
73
76
73
84