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BATTEESEA.
DURING the year 1861 there were registered in this parish 505
deaths from diseases and other causes, of which number 265 were
males and 240 females, being 33 in excess of the previous year.
This increase is attributable to the fatality of scarlet fever,
whooping cough, diarrhoea, and fever. Diseases of the brain,
heart, digestive, and respiratory organs, were also unusually fatal
during the year under review.
Of the 505 deaths enumerated in the appended table, 112
occurred in the workhouse, the infirmary attached to which, it
should ever be borne in mind, is the hospital for the entire union,
receiving many of the acute and no inconsiderable number of the
chronic cases of disease befalling the poor in the surrounding subdistricts.
Of the 112 deaths registered as having taken place in
the workhouse, 92 were of individuals in no way connected with
the parish of Battersea. Deducting these deaths therefore from
the gross number it will reduce the mortality proper to the subdistrict
to 413, which even then, regard being had to increase of
population, is somewhat largely in excess of the previous year.
The subjoined table gives the number of deaths from all causes
that have been registered during the year in the sub-district, and
since the sex, age, and social position of all the deceased persons
is, as correctly as possible, set forth in such table, it is presumed
that no one really interested in the sanitary welfare of the parish
can fail to derive from it much valuable information—information
which pages of mere description would fail to convey in so clear
a manner, or to afford such facilities for comparison with similar
statistics in previous reports.