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Section Y.— On the Uncertified Deaths and Inquests of 1866.
The deaths in St. Giles's District reported to the Registrar without any
medical certificate of their cause used to number 40 to 50 yearly Four
years ago attention was directed in the annual report to the misfortune of
this state of things, and an improvement in the amount of certification has
since been steadily taking place. In 1863 the number of uncertified deaths
fell to 26, next year to 15, and in 1865 only 12 deaths were registered without
medical evidence of their cause. It is satisfactory to note that the
improvement has gone farther, and that in 1866 only five deaths were so
registered. Four of these five were cases of premature birth, and the fifth
was that of a child 15 hours old, who died from unknown cause without
medical attendance.
The amendment of practice last year has plainly resulted from the
Registrars of Bloomsbury and South St. Giles's having been (as suggested to
them in the last of these reports) more stringent in their requirement of
certificates. There can be little question as to the possibility of procuring
medical evidence in every case, and there is no question whatever as to the
extreme desirability of such a rule being enforced by law.
In 1866, inquests were held upon the large number of 99 persons, of
whom no less than 32 were under one year old. No other age is comparable
with this for its numbers of obscure or accidental deaths. Next most frequent
were inquests on people between 40 and 60 years of age, a period of life when
several accidents and a few suicides swelled the number of violent deaths.
Section VI.—On the Diseases and Deaths in the Practice of the Public Medical
Institutions of St. Giles's in 1866.
Among public medical institutions in St. Giles's in 1866, mention must
be made not only of the permanent institutions for the relief of the sick poor,
but of the Board of Works itself, acting under the Diseases Prevention Act.
And the operations of the Infants' Home may be considered under the same
head.
The "Workhouse practice last year is reported in summary on the following
page. Unusually large aggregate numbers have received mcdical relief from
the parish. Partly this has arisen from the singular prevalence of diarrhoea,
partly from the large number of persons coming under treatment for bronchitis
and other lung affections.
The prevalence of measles and the reduction of scarlet and typhus fevers,
which were noticed upon the death registers, are again observable in the
table of Workhouse practice. Many cases of measles and whooping-cough
occurred among children resident in the Workhouse, but inasmuch as most of
the deaths from these diseases occurred among children suffering from preexisting
maladies, they have been mostly returned in the reports of the
Workhouse under the heads of such maladies and not of the contagious
complaints.
Cases of typhus fever occurred in far less numbers than in any of the last
few years, not only because of the diminished prevalence of the disease, but
also from the custom of sending fever patients to the Islington Hospital being
maintained. In the year 1866, 59 cases of typhus, 16 of typhoid, and 3 of
scarlet fever, besides other diseases, were sent into the London Fever Hospital
from St. Giles's, and nine of the cases of typhus (five of them inmates of the
Workhouse), three of typhoid, and nine of the other diseases were fatal.