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23 [1900
These figures, taken as a whole, present a picture of fair good health in a
community which has grown by leaps and bounds during the last fifty years, and
in such a manner as has rarely or never been experienced by communities that have
grown into enormous town districts like Islington. No doubt its situation has had
a great deal to do with this good health, and no doubt also its wide thoroughfares
have contributed to a large extent. The Borough has not, however, been built on
a soil—which is clay—that naturally promotes vitality, but rather on one which
has an opposite tendency, so that its salubrity must be due to other causes.
It will be noticed that in the first three decades of the table—1841-50, 1851-60,
and 1861-70—the death-rate gradually increased, for in the first of these ten-yearly
periods it averaged 19·28 per 1,000 in the second 21·43 per 1,000, and in the third
24·64 per 1,000. Then it gradually decreased, so that in the ten years 1871-80 it
fell to 20·40 per 1,000, in the succeeding decade 1881-90 to 18·60 per 1,000, and in
the third to 17·50 per 1,000. It may be noticed in passing that during the last seven
years of the 1871-80 period the death-rate ranged between 20·07 and 20·65 Per
1,000, and that in three consecutive years, 1875, 1876 and 1877, it stood at 20·07
per 1,000.
Now it is a noticeable fact that it was not until the public of this country began
to take an interest in health matters in the early seventies, which culminated in the
passing of the "Public Health Act, 1875," that the death-rate showed a decrease.
The two succeeding tables, one of which(Table XIII) has been taken from
the Registrar-General's Annual Summary for 1900, gives a comparative statement
of the mortality experienced in the thirty-three great towns of England, while the
other table(XIV) has been constructed by your Medical Officer of Health to show
a similar comparison with the Metropolitan sanitary areas. It would, perhaps, be
well, before studying the tables, first to explain what is meant by the several terms
used in the tables.
The Standard Death signifies the rate at all ages calculated on the
hypothesis that the rates at each of twelve age periods in each town, or sanitary
area, were the same as in England and Wales during the ten years, 1881-90, the
rate, at all ages, in England and Wales during that period having been 19·15 per
1,000.
The Factor for Correction is the figure by which the Recorded Deathrate
should be multiplied in order to correct for variations of sex and age distributions,
and is obtained by dividing the Standard Death-rate in England and Wales
by the Standard Death-rate in each town.
The Corrected Death-rate is the Recorded Death-rate multipled by the
Factor for Correction.
The Comparative Mortality Figure represents the Corrected Deathrate
in each town and sanitary area compared with the Recorded Death-rate at all
ages in England and Wales in 1900 taken as 1,000.