London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Kensington 1870

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

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6
Six hundred and four children died under one year old. Under
five years of age there died—including the 604 above-mentioned—
1,060 persons. The deaths over 60 years of age were 485.
The percentage of deaths under one year to the births registered,
was identical in Kensington and in the Metropolis generally, viz., 16.3
The percentage of deaths under 5 years to the births was in Kensington,
28.6 ; and in the Metropolis, as a whole, 29.2.

The percentage of deaths at the above ages, and above 60 years of age, to the total number of deaths in Kensington, and in the Metropolis respectively, was almost indentical, viz.:—

Kensington.London.
Under 1 year24.423.9 per cent.
Under 5 years43.043.0 „
Over 60 years19.719.7 „

The deaths in Kensington Parish from seven principal diseases of
the Zymotic class (viz., small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria,
whooping-cough, fever, and diarrhœa), were more numerous, absolutely
and relatively, in 1870, than in any other year to which any researches
have extended (Vide Appendix Table B). These diseases were the
causes of death in 545 cases—equivalent to 22.2 per cent. of the total
mortality—the proportionate relation of the deaths from the same
diseases, to the total deaths in London, being 21.3 per cent. The
annual rates of mortality from these maladies in the Metropolis generally,
was 5.1, and in Kensington 4.7, to every 1,000 persons living.
It is one great aim of Sanitary science to diminish the total rate of
mortality by removing the causes which give rise to these diseases,
which owe their importance to the fact that they, or most of them, are
infectious as well as preventible. In the Appendix, Table B, I have
shown the number of deaths in each year from 1861 to 1870, inclusive,
from the seven diseases above-named, and from Cholera ; and in Table D,
the principal localities from which fatal cases of these maladies were
registered in 1870.