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16
BATTERSEA.
The instructions of your Board requiring an annual summary
from each of the Medical Officers of Health, the following facts and figures are
respectfully submitted as indicating the present condition of the public health
of this sub-district, and the measures that have been adopted during 1859,
to insure as many as possible of those sanitary inprovements suggested in
former Reports.
Statistics of Mortality.
The number of deaths registered in the sub-district in the year 1859 was
394 (194 males and 200 females,))which is 14 in excess of the previous year;
but as the deaths recorded in the present Report occurred in a population which
has of course undergone some increase since my first Annual Return, they
should be compared with a number corrected in proportion to such increase.
By such a comparison it will be found that the proportion of deaths in 1859
was 35 more than the corrected average of the three preceding years. This
excess is, I apprehend, in a great measure due to three causes—the continuance
of the epidemic Scarlet Fever that occurred in November, 1858, the
increased prevalence of Hooping-cough and Diarrhoea, and the unusual coldness
of portions of the past year, which is attested by an increased mortality
resulting from diseases of the respiratory organs.