View report page

7
Had St. Giles's, in 1858, maintained the same amount of excess that it
exhibited in 1857, over the average death-rate prevailing in town, 37 more lives
in every 10,000 persons living would have been sacrificed in the year. It is
plain, then, that there has been some intrinsic agency at work within the district,
which has produced an amelioration in it, instead of permitting that deterioration
which has characterized the year 1858, in the metropolis at large. The
nature and extent of this agency will be best examined after the consideration of the
prevailing causes and of the localization of the mortality of the year.
Chapter III.—Causes of Death in St. Giles, in 1858; Comparative prevalence of
various Diseases in that Year, and in its predecessor.
The several diseases which produced the mortality of St. Giles's, in 1858, are
exhibited in Table III. appended to this Report. They are grouped into classes and
orders in the following table, which shows their relative prevalence in our own district,
and in the metropolis, and indicates those diseases which has been less frequent in St.
Giles, as well as those which have been in excess of the quota for its population. (See
next page.)
Compared with 54,300 persons taken by hazard from the whole of London,
the population of St. Giles's registered fifty-four more deaths from all causes than
would have been found if the ordinary metropolitan death-rate had existed during the
year; and including the deaths of St. Giles's patients in hospitals, the excess rises to
125. Instead of fifty-four, 232 was the amount of excess in the registered mortality of
1857, similarly calculated.
It was chiefly in the cold quarters* of the year, the first and the last, that the
deaths in St. Giles's were in excess over the rest of London. Indeed, in the autumn
quarter there were actually fewer deaths registered in our district than the quota. For
three whole months St. Giles's was healthy up to the average of the town, a very
exceptional circumstance. These facts hint at the nature of the diseases which produced
the excessive mortality.
Consumptive disease, that constant scourge of our district, killed 62 or 63
persons more than would be assigned to it for our population; or, adding those cases
which died in hospitals, the number in excess becomes seventy-five.
Lung diseases, other than consumption, and represented of course by their
principal members, bronchitis and inflammation of the lungs, were fatal to 44 persons
above the quota. Adding the hospital deaths, 54 is the number which represents the
excess in lung diseases.
Ten cases of premature birth and infantile debility were fatal in St. Giles's,
beyond the number which should have died from these causes, according to the population.
Diseases of the nervous system were in a similar excess of fourteen.
Thus far, the diseases which especially scourged St. Giles's in 1858, are
identical in nature with those of 1857, discussed in my former report. In amount,
however, consumption is the only disease which maintained its former standard of
excess. All the other kinds of disease just mentioned, although still in excess in 1858,
were notably less so than in the previous year.
* The details of this investigation for the four quarters of the year are given at Table
IV. of the Appendix.