View report page

16
deaths resulting from this class of diseases were 20 per cent. less
than in 1860, a circumstance that may be very fairly accounted for
by the attention which has been paid of late years to sanitary
improvements, and the perseverance that has been manifested in
sustaining such improvements, so as to render them permanently
effective. What greater decrease in the fatality of these diseases
may be brought about time alone can show; but it may be pretty
safely predicted that such decrease will ever be in proportion to the
consistent execution of all required sanitary works.
The decrease in the total number of deaths from all causes, as
compared with that of 1860, is about 7.25 per cent.
The rate of mortality from diseases of the zymotic class, exhibited
in the above table, places Clapham, for the past year at least, below
the metropolitan average, the proportion being 22 per cent. of all
deaths in this sub-district, against 24 in the entire metropolis. As
observed in former reports, preventive measures, particularly when
applied to the poorer localities, are always found to be far more
effective in keeping down the death-rate from epidemic diseases
than those of any other class.
MORTALITY OF CHILDREN AND INFANTS.
Although the mortality amongst children under 10 years of age
is 10 per cent. less than the rate of 1860, that of infants under
one year is found to be a third more in the past year than in the
year preceding. This feature of the mortality table is always, and
in every district, a melancholy one to comment on, as no remedy
but the moral improvement of the labouring poor can be suggested
for an evil that mainly arises from maternal neglect.
DISEASE AND MORTALITY AMONGST THE UNION POOR.
The amount of sickness amongst the union poor of this parish
(see Table V., Appendix) has during the year undergone a very
satisfactory reduction, and so likewise has the rate of mortality ;
for it will be seen that, of 1,262 cases coming under treatment, 57
persons only succumbed to those diseases, &c., for which they
received medical and surgical aid.
Small pox, I regret to say, forms a considerable item in the abovenamed
table, as it has done in almost all former ones ; but it is seen
that only one death from this malady has occurred amongst the
Union poor in the last year, against six in 1860, which is a matter
for considerable congratulation.
It is much to be regretted, however, that the number of births
in the year should have so largely exceeded the number of vaccinations.
As the public vaccinator of this sub-district, I have