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Section I.— On the Mortality of the Metropolis in 1866.
The deaths of London in 1866 amounted to no less a number than 80,129,
itself the population of a very considerable town. The rate of mortality upon
the calculated population 3,037,991 was 26.47 per thousand. This is a
higher death-rate than in any of the past ten years, but only a fraction above
that of 1864; and the high rate is accounted for by the presence of epidemic
cholera.
A comparison of the mortality of London in 1866 with that of former
cholera years demonstrates that sanitary work (imperfect as it is) has deprived
the disease of much of its power, and encourages us to rely on the ultimate
extinction of cholera if we use the means that sanitary science points out.
In 1832 the death-rate from cholera in London was 3.7 per 1000. In 1849
the death-rate of the town from all causes was 30.14, and that from cholera
6.2 per 1000. In 1854 the corresponding figures were 29.43 and 4.6; and
in 1866 they have been 26.47 and 1.8. Already the fatality of cholera has
been reduced to such a point that the gross mortality of the epidemic year 1866
scarcely exceeds that of a year (1864) when no foreign epidemic was present,
but when typhus, measles, and other indigenous complaints were swelling
the number of deaths in London.
The prevalent epidemic of the year caused the mortality of the several
quarters to differ a good deal from the usual relative amount. Generally the
highest mortality of London is in the first quarter; but in 1866 the third
quarter was in excess, having had 22,353 deaths, while the first quarter had
20,029, the second 19,291, and the last quarter 18,456. In fact, if cholera
had not occurred, the year would have been one of somewhat high, but not
remarkable mortality.
With this distribution of mortality through the four quarters, and with
the circumstance that the mortality of the first three months was distinctly
lower than usual, it readily occurs to connect the fact that the mean
temperature of the year was slightly above the average, and that the winter
temperature was higher while the summer temperature was lower than the
average. A somewhat excessive rainfall along with the low summer temperature
is to be gratefully recognized as contributing to keep down the
extension of cholera.
Other members of the symotic group of diseases that were in excess of
their usual amount in London in 1866 were small-pox, which, from its outbreak
in 1863, has never declined to its usual standard, and which, towards