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Deaths from Violence and Intemperance numbered 69 in the whole
district, and were distributed as follows: In locality A, 4; In B & C, each
6; In D and E, each 3; In F and G, each 11; In H, 7; In K. 10; In L,
2; while six deaths from such causes were among inmates of the workhouse.
The general conclusion to be drawn from this chapter appears to be that
we are achieving a little better position for those districts which habitually
had the most of zymotic deaths, but that one district at least is deteriorating
steadily in this respect. Both the fact and the exception appear to point to
the influence of sanitary work over this class of disease. But in respect of
deaths among infants from other than zymotic causes, in respect of consumption
and lung disease, and probably also in respect of other disorders not here
investigated, the poorer districts manifest little disposition to rise to the
standard of the wealthier neighbourhoods. And it is not so certain that with
these classes of disorders, the sanitary powers entrusted to the Board of Works
are able to contend.
SECTION V.—On the Diseases and Deaths in the Practice of the Public
Medical Institutions of St. Giles's in 1863.
A summary of the practice of the Parochial Medical Officers is given on
the opposite page. A comparison of this table with the corresponding one
of 1862 shows an increase in those branches of the workhouse practice which
from their nature most admit of variation from year to year. Within the
Workhouse Infirmary the number of cases received and the mortality are both
somewhat below the standard of 1862, yet are higher than have been observed
in other years. In the out-patient department, the numbers for 1863 are
exceptionally high, both among people whose smaller ailments allow of their
attending at the dispensary and among those who are visited at their own
homes.
Applicants at the parochial dispensary appear to have been more numerous
than in 1862 through the greater prevalence of diarrhoea and of slight feverish
disorders, and also through the much greater number of sufferers from bronchitis
and other lung diseases. Those who were visited at home would be
almost the same in number in the two years but for the prevalence of smallpox,
210 cases of which disease required treatment at their homes in 1863
against 3 cases only in 1862. Small-pox cases, in so far as they have been
removed from their own homes, have been received into the parish infirmary,
where they have been distributed among other patients whose vaccination was
well ascertained. Even with this precaution, there was some risk in the admixture
of this disease, but fortunately no serious ill results have followed. The
admissions for small-pox were 95, of whom 5 only died. They were unvaccinated
persons. Typhus fever sent 141 cases to the infirmary for treatment,
against 359 in 1862, and the deaths in the 141 cases amounted to 10 only.
The high mortality that is observable from certain classes of disease in
the practice of the infirmary results from two circumstances in the main: the
incurable nature of many of those complaints which drive their victims to the
workhouse as a last refuge; and the late period of their course at which the
diseases come under treatment. The influence of these conditions has been
very conclusively shown in some tables recently compiled by Mr. Bennett.
The practice of the Bloomsbury Dispensary in 1863, is shown in summary
on the table on page 14. While the total number of cases coming under
treatment was a little under that of the two previous years, the cases that
have been severe enough to require treatment at their own homes have been