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REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR MAY, 1870.
No. CLXXVII.
The registered mortality of the four weeks ending May 28th is 298.
It is less than that of May 1866, 1868, and 1869, and very little higher
than that of May 1863, 1864, and 1865, in years when our population
was not so great as it is now. Probably it is somewhere about 50 less
than it would have been had the average mortality of the month
prevailed. The amount of public sickness, however, has been higher
than it ought to be for May. It is the highest I have recorded with
the exception of May 1868, when a similar drought prevailed in this
month. Had the temperature been as persistently high as it was at
that time, we should probably have had to record even more sickness.
Fortunately the drought this month has not been thus associated, with
the exception of the third week, when the mean temperature was 6'9
degrees above the average of 50 years (Glaisher).
The continued absence of rain and the unusual dryness of the air
have favoured the spread of three of the diseases which are propagated
bv the diffusion of a morbid virus, small-pox, measles, and scarlet fever.
Small-pox, which everybody is aware is raging with great severity in
Paris, has again appeared amongst ourselves, and threatens to become
epidemic. Since its sudden arrest in the summer of 1868, we have been
nearly free from it, but it is re-appearing in its old quarters about
Upper Holloway. Six out of the eleven cases recorded in the sickness
table having occurred in that district. The houses where it has appeared
have been well looked after by the Sanitary Officers of the parish; but
measures should be taken to remind the inhabitants of the importance
of vaccination for their children, and of re-vaccination for their own
personal protection.