Reports on the sanitary state of the labouring classes : as affected chiefly by the situation and construction of their dwellings, in and about the metropolis ; extracted from the fourth and fifth annual reports of the Poor Law Commissioners.

Date:
1840
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports on the sanitary state of the labouring classes : as affected chiefly by the situation and construction of their dwellings, in and about the metropolis ; extracted from the fourth and fifth annual reports of the Poor Law Commissioners. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    In synochus, out of 7,017 attacks, there were 344 deaths—less than 1 in .20. This species of fever was the most prevalent and mortal in the following Unions: — Name of Union. Attacks. Deaths, j Lambeth 918 74 Bethnal Green 876 60 Whitechapel 745 20 St. George the Martyr . . 784 21 Stepney 694 47 Bermondsev * 463 12 In typhus, out of 5,602 attacks, there were 836 deaths : consequently this species of fever was three-fold more mortal than synochus. This form of the dis- ease prevailed chiefly in the following Unions : viz.— Name of Union. Attacks. Deaths. Whitechapel ..... 1,505 178 St. George-in-the-East . 535 45 Lambeth 503 63 Stepney....... 469 93 Bethnal Green 303 69 Poplar . . 258 15 Greenwich 261 60 Holborn 224 15 St. George the Martyr. 463 52 In scarlatina, out of 861 attacks, there were 76 deaths, ov 1 in 11, a very high rate of mortality for scarlet fever, which is, in ordinary seasons, much less fatal than synochus. Occasionally, however, it is more fatal even than typhus, and approaches nearer to the nature of plague than any other disease with which we are acquainted. Though not very prevalent in London during the last year, scarlet fever was more than commonly severe, which is testified as well by these returns as by the records of the London Fever Hospital. This form of fever pre- vailed chiefly in the following Unions : viz.— i Name of Union. Attacks. Deaths. Lambeth 222 14 Stepney 168 16 Whitechapel 87 15 Poplar ••«•••• 57 • • Kensington ...... 47 2 Hackney 42 2 Camberwell ..... 32 • • Rotherhithe ..... 30 4 These returns place in a striking point of view the fact, on which the attention cannot be too steadily fixed, that all the districts which are signalized as those in which fever is most constantly and extensively prevalent, are invariably those in which the worst species predominates, in which the severest cases occur, and in which, whatever be the species, the mortality is the greatest; thus, out of the 5,692 cases of typhus, the total number that occurred in]all the Unions, seven Unions only yielded 4,002 cases, viz.—