Report on the sanitary condition of the Hackney District for the year 1888.

  • Hackney (London, England). Board of Works.
Date:
1889
Catalogue details

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

Credit: Report on the sanitary condition of the Hackney District for the year 1888. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    18 figures for 1887, when they were more adverse to the hospital than in other years. Besides this, there were many more beds occupied in the Homerton (Eastern) hospital in 1887 than formerly, so that the unfavorable statistics were most probably the result of the enormous aggregation of cases in 1887, when, for about a month, viz., from the middle of October to nearly the end of November, more than 400 cases were being treated at one time in the hospital, against about 250 in October and November, 1886, and about 200 in same period of 1882. I then said, page 10, and repeat now, It is evident that the enquiry must be extended over a longer period in this and in other districts before a definite conclusion can be arrived at. The cases this year have scarcely been sufficiently numerous to re-open the enquiry, but I must again express my opinion that the cases of scarlet fever treated in the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals should be spread over as many buildings as possible instead of being concentrated chiefly in one or two, so as to avoid the risk to the health of the neighbourhood which might arise, arising out of an aggregation of more than 400 cases on one site as occurred in 1887, and the removal of so many infected persons through the district. I have already stated in my fortnightly reports that a rather severe outbreak of scarlet fever ocourred at Hackney Wick, especially during the months of September and October, when 59 cases were reported to me. I was by no means surprised at this, as the disease had not been epidemic there for some years, although other localities in the district had suffered severely. In consequence of the outbreak I deemed it advisable to have a special inspection made in all the houses there to ascer tain if there were any accumulations of dust, choked or defeotive drains, defective paving or water supply apparatus, and had all the nuisances found during the inspection immediately abated. A large number of defective water supply apparatus were found, although the houses were examined and all such and other defects remedied during the latter part of the previous year.
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