View report page

REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR MARCH, 1870.
No. CLXXV.
If our estimate of the increase of our population is reliable, the
corrected mean mortality of the last ten Marches may be stated at 483,
for comparison with the 458 deaths registered in the fire weeks ending
April 2nd. At all events our mortality is not to be regarded as excessive.
The whole month has been comparatively cold. The principal
fatality has fallen upon persons suffering from pulmonary diseases of
various kinds, including phthisis, and upon old people. The epidemic
of hooping cough is apparently at an end, and the deaths from scarlet
fever have been less numerous than in February; the prevalence of the
disease, however, does not seem to have continued to decline during
March. It is to be observed that although only six deaths from measles
have been registered, this disease is now spreading, 54 new cases having
been recorded against 24 in February. In accordance with our observations
in this parish we have to expect the epidemic extension of
measles this year, either in the approaching month or in the autumn.
Fortunately, it is a less fatal disease than scarlet fever, but still it is
very fatal to young infants attacked, especially to infants under two
years of age; after this age the fatality lessens. It is ten or fifteen
times more fatal under two years of age (according to my observations
here) than between five and fifteen years of age. Under five years of
age, too, young children are about 2½ times more likely to take it than
between five and ten years, and about 17 times more likely to take it
than between 10 and 15 years of age. Hence, as the disease spreads
like scarlet fever by contagion, especial care should betaken to separate
the younger children of a family when the disease attacks one member,
so that they shall not associate with the sick child. We still have an
unusually large number of cases of diarrheal affections recorded on our
Sickness Table.