[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hanover Square, The Vestry of the Parish of Saint George].

  • Hanover Square (London, England). Parish. Vestry.
Date:
[1868]
Catalogue details

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

Credit: [Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Hanover Square, The Vestry of the Parish of Saint George]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    15/42 page 7
    7 (22.4)* of those estimated as having occurred during four years in the second and third-rate business streets, and the dwellings of the artizan population in the Hanover and May fair Sub-Districts. This high rate of mortality in the first year of occupation naturally induced me to enquire further into the subject, and it appears, from the reports of the directors of the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes—copies of which have been kindly sent to me by Mr. Gatliff—that the mortality in the entire property of the Association has in the year [1867] been 47 out of an average population of 2,681; 26 of these deaths were of children under ten years of age. It appears, therefore, that the average rate of mortality in the buildings of the Association has been rather over 17 per 1,000, while that of the metropolis generally has been 26½ per 1,000. On reference to the reports it will be found that the rate of 17 per 1,000 in the dwellings of the Association has now been maintained for seven successive years. What, then, produced the high rate of mortality in these new buildings ? Mr. Gatliff supposes that it might possibly arise from the state of health of the families, at the time they became tenants, coming from close and confined neighbourhoods. It has been observed in houses newly erected that, either from dampness of the walls, or from disturbance of the ground in the neighbourhood, a somewhat high rate of mortality prevailed. The site, originally swampy, and of low elevation, formed a part of the parish shoot, and children in the vicinity often suffered formerly from gastric fever. Children encountered strong gusts of wind, during winter, in the galleries and passages of these buildings, so that parents should attend more to their thermal comfort than they do at present. I have often seen the youngest infants carried about there with bare arms and necks in the coldest * Report No. 14, page 27,
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