View report page

One hundred and twenty-four deaths occurred in the
Workhouse, and if these deaths are distributed among the
three registration districts in proportion to the relative
population of each, the death-rates in the several districts
would be :—Leather Market, 23.6; St. Mary Magdalen, 21.8;
St. James's, 21.3.
The infant death-rate, or the proportion of deaths under
one year of age per thousand registered births was 158. In
London this rate was 151, and the mean rate of 28 large
towns was 162. In 20 of these towns this rate was higher
than in Bermondsey.
CAUSES OF DEATH.
Classification. —The Registrar-General has made several
changes in his classification of causes of death. The advance
of medical science leads to greater precision in diagnosis, and
this causes a constant increase in the number of deaths
ascribed to definite causes at the expense of deaths of which
the causes are indefinitely described. The latter class is still
a large one. In order that deaths may be properly tabulated"
by their causes, and that the results collected at the cost of
much labour should be of any value, the certificates should state
the primary disease as well as the immediate cause of death.
A death may be assigned to "dropsy," but this may be
dependent on very diverse diseases, as of the kidneys, lungs,
liver, or heart. Deaths are sometimes attributed simply to
" haemorrhage." Such deaths may have been caused by
flooding in childbirth, by cut throat, by the rupture of an
aneurism, by an ulcer of the stomach, by disease of the
lungs, or other very different causes which may lead to fatal
haemorrhage. The term " septicaemia," or blood poisoning,
has in many cases a puerperal cause which is not stated on
the certificates, and sometimes it is used to conceal the
existence of infectious disease. Under the designation of
" atrophy " are included some cases of death from congenital
syphilis, and not a few which are really due to loss of breast
milk and the improper hand feeding of infants. These
observations are founded on those made by the Registrar-
General in his 44th Annual Report, and must not be understood
as having any special reference to our own district.
Zymotic Diseases. —The mortality from the principal diseases
of this class was high. The fatal cases numbered 420 in the