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above the average number during the last five years. By reference
to the same table, it will be seen that in nearly all the
other districts of London the number of deaths last year was
greatly in excess of the average during the same period. In one
district there were as many as 145 deaths above the average.
No improvement in sanitary law, in reference to the prevention
of infectious diseases, has taken place since I presented my last
annual report. Our Government seem at length to recognise the
necessity for further legislative enactment on the subject, and a
Royal Hospitals' Commission has been appointed to enquire into
the question and to report to the House of Commons. I had the
honor to give evidence before the Royal Commission, a copy of
that evidence will be laid before your Board after the report has
been made to the House. It is greatly to be hoped that the
subject will be now effectually dealt with, and that the large sacrifice
of human life which has occurred from this terrible complaint
may be for the future prevented. I can see no reason why smallpox,
if properly dealt with, should continue to exist, except as
an occasional isolated case. In London last year there were 2371
deaths from smallpox, as compared with 475 the previous year.
There were therefore nearly five times as many cases last year as
the year previous. In this district there were 46 deaths of parishioners
against 11 the previous year, which equals about 4 to 1.
It is reasonable to assume that the large amount of energy that
was expended to prevent the disease from spreading, was the
means of this district being one of the least infected districts of
London.
During last year 327 cases of smallpox—males 177, females
150—were reported in this district, against 328, 266, 166, and 51
cases reported in the four years 1877, 1878, 1879,1880 respectively.
From the number of deaths, 6 registered as occurring in private
dwelling houses, we may estimate there were very few cases
treated at home besides the 50 that were reported. Of the 327
cases reported last year, there were 82 in the parish of Hammersmith,
against 9 the previous year, and 245 in the parish of
Fulham, against 42 the previous year. It is a remarkable fact
that there is always a very much larger number of cases in the
parish of Fulham than in the parish of Hammersmith, although
there is in the parish of Hammersmith a very much larger population
than in the parish of Fulham. I have no doubt that the
difference in the numbers of cases in the two parishes is to some
extent due to the fact that a large number of non-parishioners
suffering from the disease, have been treated at the Metropolitan
Asylum Hospital at Fulham. This evil is for the present removed
; still, taking all the circumstances of the two parishes