[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, The Vestry of the Parish of St. George the Martyr].

  • St. George the Martyr (Southwark, London, England). Parish Council.
Date:
1898
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Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Southwark, The Vestry of the Parish of St. George the Martyr]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    7 Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1897 Hence we see the heavy death-rate in the Borough Road Sub-District has some what decreased. During the past year the mortality in the Borough Road has been ten over that of the London Road, and 4.9 over that of the Kent Road areas. The period over which these figures extend—six years—and the actual number of deaths are both too small to allow of drawing any absolutely sound conclusions. Nevertheless, it may be noticed that the mortality of the Borough Road Sub-District is 9.5 higher than that of the thirty three large English towns. Further, the figures, so far as they extend, show that the excessive mortality of the Borough Road Sub-District is maintained from year to year, so that it appears to be due to inherent and not to accidental causes. The annual death-rate for 1897 has risen to 23.2 as against 22.9 in 1896. There is still room for large and permanent reduction in the death-rate of St. George the Martyr. Were it possible to eliminate the Borough Road Sub-District, or to reduce its mortality to a level with that of the other sub-districts, the condition of St. George the Martyr, as a whole, would compare favourably with many districts much more happily situated both as regards density of population and general healthiness of surroundings. TABLE V. Years. St. George, Southwark. London. Death-rate per 1,000. Death-rate per 1,000. 1841—50 inclusive 30 25 1851—60 „ 27 24 1861—70 „ 27 24 1871—80 „ 25.2 22.4 1881—90 „ 25.0 20.5 1892 25.2 20.3 1893 27.6 21.3 1894 23.9 17.7 1895 23.7 19.7 1896 22.9 18.2 1897 23.2 18.1 Zymotic or Preventable Death Rate. It may be noted that the term zymotic applies to the following seven diseases: —Small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, fever (i.e., typhus, relapsing puerperal, simple continued and typhoid) and diarrhoea. I have called the above zymotic diseases preventable,'' because I regard all communicable diseases, broadly speaking, as coming under that heading. Diarrhœa is a symptom as well as a specific disease, and, although not usually communicated from one person to another, it may be regarded as the almost invariable result of bad environment. At the same time, it must be clearly understood that a vast amount of preventable disease, such as that due to alcoholism, is not zymotic. In other words, while all zymotic disease is preventable, not all preventable diseases are zymotic. The corrected death rate in St. George's, Southwark, from the seven principal zymotic diseases was 43 per 1,000 in 1897, as against 2.6 per 1,000 in the whole of London for the same period, and 29 in the thirty-three great towns of England and Wales.