Page 20 - Smallwood Hospital

Redditch Heritage Smallwood Hospital

Chapter 2 OTHER DISEASES AND LEGISLATION

Diseases in nineteenth century England and Wales

1840 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910

Smallpox 10,876 4,753 2,882 2,857 651 16 85 19

Typhus 3,520 611 151 29 5

Typhoid 19,040 15,435 14,084 9,185 7,160 5,146 5,591 1,889

Scarlet fever 21,377 14,756 10,578 34,628 18,703 6,974 3,844 2,370

Whooping
cough 6,352 8,285 8,956 12,528 14,103 13,756 11,467 8,797

Measles 9,566 7,332 9,805 7,986 13,690 12,614 12,710 8,302

Pneumonia 19,083 21,138 26,586 25,147 27,099 40,373 44,300 39,760

Tuberculosis 63,870 50,202 55,345 57,973 51,711 48,366 42,987 36,334

Child bed fever 3,204 3,478 3,409 4,027 3,492 4,255 4,455 2,806

33
Deaths from diseases in England and Wales 1840-1910
The above figures show that smallpox and typhus had almost disappeared from the records by
the end of the century, and that scarlet fever and typhoid were soon to join them. However,
these figures do not show the deaths per thousand people when there was a rapidly rising
population.

Diseases in nineteenth century Redditch

Smallpox

William Avery wrote about early cases of smallpox in Redditch:

While on this subject [cholera] I may allude to a later time - 1838 - when smallpox was
extremely fatal. On the 23rd December, John Haden, a young man with a wooden leg, died.
Quiney, of the Horse and Jockey, buried five children in three weeks; and William and Ann
Webb, four in a fortnight; and Henry Humphries, three in about nine days. 34

Smallpox was an infectious disease that began with a high fever, headache, and back pain and

33
Halliday, S. (2007) The Great Filth: The War Against Disease in Victorian England. Stroud, Sutton
Publishing. Figures taken from the Annual Reports of the Registrar-General.
34
Avery, W. (Ed. A. Bradford) (1999) OLD REDDITCH being an early history of the town (1800-1850).
Redditch, Hunt End Books.

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