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21 [1897
DEATHS.
There were 5,395 deaths registered in London of persons belonging
to the Parish of St. Mary, Islington. Of these deaths 2,707 were males
and 2,688 females.
The death-rate was 15.80 per 1,000 of the population, and it is the
lowest since registration was introduced in 1837.
The deaths were 754 below the mean number annually registered
during the 12 years 1885-96, while the death-rate is 2.21 per 1,000
below the average death-rate of those years. This means that 754
persons are now alive, who, if the rate which obtained during the 12
years had been experienced in 1897, would otherwise have died.
This is a large saving of human life, for which, from whatever
cause or causes arising, Islingtonians have very great reason to be
thankful.
The nearest approach to the present death-rate was that of 1894,
when it was 15.92 per 1,000.
It is advisedly stated that the death-rate for 1897 was the lowest
since registration was introduced in 1837. The writer is aware that on
several occasions former Medical Officers of Health recorded marvellously
. low figures, as for instance in 1886, when the death-rate was reported as
being 15.7, in 1887 as 16.0, in 1888 as 14.0, in 1889 as 13.3, and in 1890 as
15.6. Now all these death-rates were absolutely incorrect, in the first
place, because the deaths of Islingtonians in the Metropolitan Hospitals
were not included, and in the second place, because there were errors
in the estimated population, ranging from over 20,000 in 1885 to nearly
50,000 in 1890.
Down to 1885 it was very difficult to correctly gauge the number
of deaths of parishioners in Hospitals without the Parish, and, indeed,
each of my predecessors commented on the difficulty in their Annual