[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green, Parish of St. Matthew ].

  • Bethnal Green (London, England). Parish.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Bethnal Green, Parish of St. Matthew ]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    16 Diarrhœa, 2 of Erysipelas, 2 of Carbuncle, 10 of Catarrh, and 34 of various kinds. Besides the above, 18 others were attended at the Guardian Asylum on the Green. As the ratio of deaths is annually to the sickness as 1 to 28, the ill ness, General and Pauper, of Bethnal Green would be 68,376 attacks. I have now to record the Sanitary Progress of the year, which I beg to preface with the annexed remarks :—In the year 1838, when the population of Bethnal Green was little above 70,500 persons, 2254 deaths occurred, and 1 out of every 104 fell by diseases of the epidemic class. When how ever in 1858 the people amounted to nearly half as many more, the deaths numbered but 2442, and the epidemics were fatal to 1 only out of every 167. These numbers conse quently represent the rates on life as Bethnal Green then was and at present is. Entire streets are no longer as at that time swamps, and though from increase of people the area to each one is smaller, the climatorial conditions have so much improved that instead of 1 inhabitant dying annually (as in 1838) out of every 35,* the proportion in 1858 was but 1 in 43. 3 blocks of Sewers, constructed since my last Report, will uphold and advance the vantage ground. By their con struction the sanitary condition of the surrounding neigh bourhoods will be improved, and the value of the dwellings in 67 streets increased. Favoured with information by your Surveyor and Inspector, whom I very cordially beg to thank, I have now the pleasure of specifying the numbers of houses drained and completed in a few of the several streets where Sewers have been constructed since September 1857. Thus, omitting the streets where less than 30 entries were made, the houses drained in Anglesea, Bath and Essex Streets, numbered respectively 31; in Abbey Street 32; in * Annual Rate of Mortality per 100 in Bethnal Green 2.873, and of the Epidemic Class 0.959.—Second Annual Report of the Registrar General, p. 166.