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15
MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT,
1866.
Report on the Health of the Parish of St. Martin-in-theFields
for the Year 1865.
In the year 1865, there have been 579 births and 597
deaths. Of children under five years there have been
227 deaths, and persons over sixty years 106. From
epidemic diseases there have been 99 deaths; the most
fatal of these diseases has been whooping cough.
The house-to-house visitation has been of considerable
service in the discovery of many nuisances,
which might have remained unnoticed for years, and it
would have been more useful but for the unfortunate
illness of the appointed Inspector, who was obliged to
go into King's College Hospital, where he died. However,
we obtained a very long list of houses requiring
cleansing, whitewashing, and many repairs to closets,
cellars, dustbins, &c., most of which have been carried
out. The defective state of the drainage, &c., of houses
can only be fully made known to Inspectors and Officers
of Health by information obtained from the occupants
themselves: a mere inspection of the premises does
not give us sufficient knowledge of defective drains,
unless the occupants call attention to them from their
own experience. There were but few instances of
positive refusal to permit the Inspector to see premises,