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STPAN 16
27
ANNUAL REPORT
OF THE
.
MEDICAL OFFICER OF HEALTH,
FOR THE TEAK 1850.
TO THE VESTRY OF SAINT PANCRAS.
Gentlemen,
I have now the honor to present to you my Fourth Annual Report,
being a Report on the sanitary condition of your Parish during the year 1859.
The number of deaths registered in Saint Pancras in that year numbered
4276, besides 139 which occurred in the Strand Union "Workhouse of Strand
parishioners. This year, as last, I have included in this number all the deaths
in the University College and Royal Free Hospitals, and omitted all those who
died in the Hospitals of adjoining districts, having recently resided in this
Parish. The very slight inaccuracy thus existing is not sufficient to affect any
of my calculations on the death-rate, as the two numbers very nearly counterbalance
each other.*
The death-rate was nearly 22 per thousand, or more accurately 219 to every
ten thousand living. This rate is on the assumption that the population of
Saint Pancras was 195,000 in the middle of the year 1859. This estimate is
probably too low; it is the same as I assumed to be the population in 1858. I
have explained in a note to Table A the two methods which may be adopted
in calculating the present population; by the one method the population would
be 194,888, and by the other 204,187. The actual population probably lies
somewhere between the two estimates. It is well, however, in estimating the
death-rate, to take the population lower than it is, rather than higher, because in
this way we shall not, when the census returns are obtained, find that the
mortality of the Parish is higher than our calculations have made it.
As compared with ten previous years, the mortality of 1859 is higher than
the mean of those years when no allowance is made for the increase of population,
being 4415 (including the deaths in the Strand Union) to compare with
an average of 4052; but this average must be raised at least 10 per cent.
to allow for the increase of population, when it becomes 4456; so that the
mortality of last year was a little below the corrected average of the ten years
1849—58, inclusive.
The death-rate of the whole Metropolis in 1859 was 2229 per hundred
thousand, a little higher than that of St. Pancras. The death-rate in the
northern districts of the Metropolis, which include Marylebone, Hampstead,
Islington, Hackney, and Pancras, was 2116; so that the mortality has been a
little higher in St. Pancras than in the districts by which it is surrounded.
*The exact numbers are as follows:—Of the deaths in Univt sity College Hospital 74 were not
parishioners of St. Pancras, and of the deaths in the Royal Free Hospital 38 wore not parishioners,
so that 112 should be subtracted from the gross total. There were 99 deaths of parishioners
of St. Pancras in Hospitals of adjoining districts, distributed as follows: Middlesex
Hospital, 37; Bartholomew's, 21; London Fever. 13; Hospital for Sick Children, 13; Small
Pox, 8; King's College, 5; and Charing Cross Hospital, 2. This number would have to be
added to the gross amount. After these corrections the number of deaths would be 4263, instead
of 4276.