[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District].

  • St. Giles (London, England). District Council.
Date:
1866
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for St. Giles District]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    2 Of other diseases classed as zymotic by the Registrar General, smallpox caused 646 deaths—a number still in excess of the non-epidemic standard of the disease; measles, scarlatina, and whooping cough were each fatal above the average of the ten preceding years; but none of these diseases were so fatal as in 1864. Continued and infantile fevers produced during 1865 excessive num bers of deaths; the epidemic of typhus, which began in 1862, persisting until the end of the past year. The several groups of districts into which the metropolis is divided, con tributed less unequally than usual to the death-rates of 1865, the districts upon which the singular mortality of 1864 especially fell, showing in 1865 their death-rates reduced to nearly their ordinary amount; whereas the districts that had no great share in producing the excess of 1864, do not show any such re markable reduction in 1865. (Appendix table I). Section II.— On the Mortality of St. Giles's in 1865, from all Causes. Comparison with other Districts. The Central districts of London had a death-rate in 1865 of 27 in the thousand. In 1864, their rate was 29¼, and in the mean of the five years pre ceding, it was 26. St. Giles's district, which is one of the central group, had in 1865, a death-rate of 292/3; in 1864, of 31, and in the mean of the five former years of 28. Steadily therefore, but in 1865 rather more than usual, the mor tality of the district has been in excess of those among which it is grouped. Death-rate per 10,000* in St. Giles's and neighbouring Districts. districts. 1857. 1858. 1859. 1860. 1861. 1862. 1863. 1864. 1865. St. Pancras 1970 224.9 221.4 208.7 228.3 215.5 225.6 248.1 238.2 St. Marylebone 217.3 224.0 225.0 227.7 242.5 237.1 245.3 250.4 244.7 Metropolis 221.0 234.4 227.0 224.1 231.8 234.1 244.4 260.4 245.4 Holborn 236.3 247.7 248.6 238.7 270.4 285.5 279.3 312.8 207.7 Strand 239.4 226.6 262.9 231.5 233.7 254.6 261.0 300.8 283.6 St. Martin 243.0 218.5 246.7 228.6 233.7 238.0 260.9 257.4 250.0 St. Giles 280.0 258.2 260.1 262.4 270.3 289.0 284.5 310.0 295.5 * Correction is here made for the longer duration of the registration years 1857 & 1863. Also for all deaths in hospitals and outlying Workhouses. For comparison of St. Giles's with each district surrounding it, the table on the opposite page has been constructed. It appears, from this table, that Holborn was (after correction) a little worse than St. Giles in its death-rate, and that the Strand district was nearly as bad. From the foregoing summary the fact also appears, and should be mentioned, although there is no satisfaction in it, that of recent years there has been little to choose between St. Giles and Holborn, and not much between St. Giles and the Strand, whereas at the beginning of these reports, there was a difference of about two in the thousand against St. Giles's. Scrutiny of the table indeed, suggests that in the past year at any rate, St. Giles district did not suffer disproportionately to its neighbours from causes that are most under sanitary controul The great excess of deaths in St. Giles's occurred during the inclement winter and spring weather that has been noted, and resulted to some extent indeed from epidemic typhus, but in the main from the fatality of old bronchitis and consumption among the resi dents of the workhouse and common lodging houses, who are disproportionately numerous in this district. In the third quarter of the year, the season of typhoid fever and diarrhoea, (although there was much of such disease in St. Giles's), St. Pancras alone shows a smaller registered mortality than this district.