“It is when such wretched offspring, ill-nourished, ill-clothed, and in every way neglected, become exposed to the depressing influences of an impure atmosphere that they sicken, and such children when they sicken they die…. When the habitation of such children is an overcrowded, dilapidated tenement in some close, ill-ventilated court or alley, furnished with an undrained closet, surrounded by untrapped drains, and festering heaps of filth, we find ourselves astonished, not that so many die, but that so many survive.”
In some special places the mortality was still higher. Thus the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington reports in 1856:—
“In some places the mortality among infants under five years of age was at the enormous rate of 61·3 per cent. of the total deaths.
“One of the most deplorable spots, not only in Kensington, but in the whole metropolis, is the Potteries at Nottingdale. It occupies about 8 or 9 acres, and contains about 1,000 inhabitants … the general death-rate varies from 40–60 per 1,000 per annum. Of these deaths, the very large proportion of 87·5 per cent. are under five years of age.”
The Medical Officer of Health for Whitechapel (in 1858), after reporting that the total mortality under five years in the Whitechapel district is about 56 per cent., wrote:—
“How to overcome this frightful and apparently increasing amount of mortality of the young is a problem well worthy the attentive consideration of every citizen. The time may be far distant before this problem is solved; nevertheless it is my duty to chronicle facts, and although I may not be able to suggest a remedy to meet this evil, still the knowledge that so large an amount of infant mortality does exist in our district—I may say, at our very doors—will perhaps rouse the attention of the philanthropist, the man of science, and the man of leisure, to investigate its cause, and endeavour to mitigate it.”
Once more it must be called to mind that this mortality was not the whole of the evil, for it was indicative of widespread infantile sickness and disease among those who escaped the death penalty—sickness and disease impairing the health and strength of thousands upon thousands of the juvenile population.
The facts set forth by many of the Medical Officers of Health must have enlightened many of the new local authorities as to the nature and extent of the work which it had now become their duty to perform, and the grave problems for which they were expected to find the best solution.