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Or in reduced numbers, where there are 8 persons in Wapping, in the
same space there are found 9 in Limehouse, 10 in Shadwell, and 12
in Ratcliff.
So here is Wapping having only 95 persons per acre, not quite
two-thirds of Ratcliff, still possessing the highest death-rate. But
when it is announced that Wapping is nevertheless, in the strict
meaning of the term, the healthiest parish, the statement may give
rise to some astonishment; yet such is the fact. The best criterion of
the high sanatory condition of a locality is its freedom from zymotic
disease. Now, I propose by a simple calculation to see how this
statement is borne out by the returns as regards Wapping.
From the enumeration of deaths, properly corrected, from this
class of diseases, there have been at the rate in
Ratcliff. Limehouse. Shadwell. Wapping.
5.8 per cent. 5.2 4.9 3.3
The latter parish, therefore, in a strict sanatory sense, is the
healthiest portion of the District, for while 3 persons die from these
diseases (such as fevers, &c.) in Wapping, 4½ die in Shadwell, 5 in
Limehouse, and nearer 6 in Ratcliff.
Then again, as respects tubercular, or the consumptive class of
diseases, another index to a healthy locality, the same relation holds
good: making the requisite deductions for the workhouses, Wapping
and then Shadwell, maintain their sanatory pre-eminence.
But when I come to consider another class of diseases, the
inflammatory, affecting the organs of respiration, the far greater proportion
consisting of bronchitis and pneumonia, then the difficulty
appears at once susceptible of explanation. For I find the rule of
health, on reference to table I, is now reversed, and Wapping stands
highest in the scale of mortality. There have died from these diseases
at the rate, in
Limehouse. Ratcliff. Shadwell. Wapping.
2.9 per cent. 3.5 4.8 6.6
So that 2 die in Wapping from lung disease (not consumption),
for 1 in Limehouse and Ratcliff in the same number of persons. The
excess also is noticeable in Shadwell, though not so great.
On reference to a map of London, it will be seen that Wapping,