Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With AppendicesChadwick, Edwin
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Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With Appendices
Chadwick, Edwin
Housing -- Great Britain; Public health -- Great Britain
I have appended the copy of a map of Bethnal Green, made with the view
of showing the proportions in which the mortality from epidemic diseases
and diseases affected by localities, fell on different classes of
tenements during the same year. The localities in which the marks of
death (×) are most crowded are the poorest and the worst of the
district; where the marks are few and widely spread, the houses and
streets, and the whole condition of the population, is better. By the
inspection of a map of Leeds, which Mr. Baker has prepared at my
request, to show the localities of epidemic diseases, it will be
perceived that they similarly fall on the uncleansed and close streets
and wards occupied by the labouring classes; and that the track of the
cholera is nearly identical with the tract of fever. It will also be
observed that in the badly cleansed and badly drained wards to the right
of the map, the proportional mortality is nearly double that which
prevails in the better conditioned districts to the left.
To obtain the means of judging of the references to the localities in
the sanitary returns from Aberdeen, the reporters were requested to mark
on a map the places where the disease fell, and to distinguish with a
deeper tint those places on which it fell with the greatest intensity.
They were also requested to distinguish by different colours the streets
inhabited by the higher, middle, and lower classes of society. They
returned a map so marked as to disease, but stated that it had been
thought unnecessary to distinguish the streets inhabited by the
different orders of society, as that was done with sufficient accuracy
by the different tints representing the degrees of intensity of the
prevalence of fever.
In the Whitechapel union, in which the special investigation which led
to the inquiry into the sanitary condition of the metropolis was first
directed, the numbers were as follows in the year 1838:—
No. of WHITECHAPEL UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
37 Gentlemen and persons engaged in professions, and
their families 45 years.
387 Tradesmen and their families 27
1,762 Mechanics, servants, and labourers, and their
families 22
To judge of the comparative mortality amongst the average of a town
population, I obtained the following returns; the one from the clerk of
the Strand union, the other from the clerk of the Kensington union:—
No. of STRAND UNION. Average
Deaths. Age of
Deceased.
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