View report page

9
diseases unduly prevalent in St. Giles's in 1859, underwent a reduction and were
in i860 no more fatal than in the average of the town. By typhus and typhoid
fever and their congeners, the district did not incur more losses than we should calculate
for its population. Diphtheritis is stated to have been the cause of ten deaths in
St. Giles's, a number which pretty nearly corresponds for our population with the
480 deaths from this disease in the whole of London.
The epidemic of small-pox that invaded St. Giles's in 1859 leaves evidence of
its ravages on this Table. A long account of the outbreak was given in the Report
of last year, and the means employed for arresting the disease were fully stated.
To the present Report is appended (No. VIII,) an extract from Dr. Seaton's Report to
the Medical Officer of the Privy Council relating to this epidemic. Here and in other
parts of the same Report, the value of the proceedings of the parochial authorities is
forcibly indicated and acknowledged.
Secondly.—Constitutional Diseases.—These comprise cancer and similar
diseases, along with a group of more interest for us, the Tubercular order, which
includes consumption, scrofula, tabes, and water on the brain in children. It is well
ascertained that this group of diseases is habitually and remarkably fatal to our
district. In the year 1860, as in the preceding year, there was an excess of some
eighty deaths above the quota, high as the mortality from these disorders was in the
whole town. Two hundred and eighty-one is a very serious excess above two
hundred and three. Whenever a cold wet season aggravates the mortality from
consumption in London at large, then do such deaths in St. Giles's undergo a still
more rapid increase. Poverty, with its concomitants of exposure, bad air, and poor
food, is sure to be also attended by an undue mortality from the tubercular
disorders.
Thirdly.—Local Diseases.—It has already been stated that diseases of the
lungs, and to a less extent of the heart, of the brain, and of the kidneys, were
especially fatal in London in 1860. If we were right in assigning the peculiar
climate of the year as the cause of this excess, we should expect to find that cold
and wet had produced the same results in St. Giles's, in a still greater degree.
And we do, indeed, find that the year's quota for our population, high as it is, is
considerably exceeded by the actual mortality of our district from each of these
four groups of diseases. Diseases of the respiratory organs exhibit the enormous
number of 311 deaths, which is seventy-eight above the quota for 1860, and
eighty-seven above the number which occurred in St. Giles's in 1859. Both acute
and chronic lung diseases appear as ctie causes of this high mortality, but the acute
diseases, as might have been expected, are those which have undergone by far the
greater share of the increase.
Fourthly.—Developmental Diseases were much more fatal in St. Giles's than
would be calculated for its population. That this class includes many of the
maladies incidental to young children, at once, unhappily affords a partial reason for
the excess. On the other hand " old age" is another of the causes of death
included under this head, and it may be some satisfaction to know that this is
assigned as the sole cause of death in several more instances than the numbers of
our parishioners would lead us to expect.
In the class of, fifthly, Violent Deaths, we find the large number of thirty-nine
deaths recorded. Eighteen of these took place in the wards of neighbouring
hospitals. Of six suicides, five were men,
Lastly, of Diseases Unspecified returned as the cause of death, there have been
more in St. Giles's, and there generally are a few more, than in an equal population
elsewhere in London. This may be rerre nbered in connexion with what will
follow in this Report on the registration of deaths.