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1156 in 1859. Scarlatina, which killed 1587 persons only in 1857, was fatal to
4118 and 4197 in 1858 and 1859. Measles and whooping-cough fell from their
high numbers in 1858 to the lower rate of 1857, whilst diarrhoea, following the
same rule of reverting to the rate of 1857, underwent an increase. It is satisfactory
to find that the diseases which most of all depend upon local circumstances,
and least upon contagion, the group of typhus and other fevers, have been most
steady in their decrease, deaths from these complaints numbering 2161, 1996, and
1890, in the three past years.
Further details on the mortality of the Metropolis, and its causes, will be
found ia the appended Tables.
Chapter II.— Gross Mortality of St. Giles's District.
Fourteen hundred and fourteen residents in the parishes of St. Giles and
St. George died in the 52 weeks under consideration. Of these 1343 were registered
by the local registrars (subject to a correction of three for errors in their returns),
while the deaths of 74 persons, brought from houses in our district, appear on the
death-books of hospitals situated in other parishes. Including these hospital
deaths, the rate of mortality of our district in 1859, was 260 in the 10,000 against
258 in 1858 and 286 in 1857. Our total mortality, therefore, was practically the
same in each of the two past years, and that was shown in my preceding report to
be considerably below our average death-rate in former years. It would of course
be more gratifying to chronicle a still decreasing death-rate, but even to maintain
the mortality at the very much diminished rate of 1858 is not altogether unsatisfactory.
If in the past two years our St. Giles's population had died at their customary
rate, 292 persons would have lost their lives in addition to those who have
actually perished.
Of the 1414 deaths, 727 were of males, 687 of females. The preponderance
of males is a recognised rule of mortality, and is partly accounted for by the greater
exposure of this sex to weather and accident. Forty-seven out of the seventy-four
who died in hospitals were males. To compensate for this greater mortality, there
are usually more male children produced in a community than females. In St.
Giles's, however, this was not the case last year, for 887 of the total births were
females, 842 only were males.
The ages at death will be seen in detail in Table III. appended to this report.
Here it will be enough to observe that 237 male and 211 female children
died before reaching their second year, and that the total number of children dying
under five years of age was 602. These figures are almost identical with those of
1858, and indicate a maintenance of the improvement, such as it was, that that year
had obtained over its predecessor.
In the first quarter 367 deaths occurred, in the second 345, in the third
341, and in the last three months of the year 361 deaths. It is curious that the
preponderance of male deaths should have been exclusively in the Autumn,
the total amount, 341, being made up of 149 females and 192 males. The cold
seasons, it will be observed, follow here the ordinary rule of being more fatal than
the warm quarters.
Proceeding to compare our own district with the Metropolis at large, and
with the districts immediately adjacent to us, in respect of the aggregate death-rate
of each, we find that St. Giles's has not yet risen out of the lowest place which we
have had to assign to it in former years. Its death-rate is still in excess of Holborn
and the Strand, as well as being considerably higher than St. Martin's, St.
Pancras, and St; Marylebone.