London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Marylebone 1893

The sanitary chronicles of the Parish of St. Marylebone being the annual report of the Medical Officer of Health for the year 1893

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death-rate than St. Marylebone: a large majority of the
sick poor, all the insane, and most of those suffering from
infectious fevers are treated in institutions outside the
parochial boundary. In 1893 the extra-parochial deaths
were 812 in number, but in some other years they have
been 1,000; if therefore only the deaths taking place within
the parish, of parishioners, be used for calculating the rate,
the result is far too low: thus for 1893 the death-rate would
be 16.4; on the other hand, by including the extra-parochial
deaths, the rate is higher than the truth, because the
corresponding sick population has been left out of the
calculation. An estimate of the sick extra-parochial
population belonging to St. Marylebone is possible by calculations
based on the following data: (1) Census of the
hospital population, (2) number of patients treated in 1893,
(3) death-rate of the particular hospitals.
I have attempted this calculation, and the following is
the result:—

Probable average number of parishioners under treatment in extra-parochial hospitals, &c., in the middle of 1893.

St. Marylebone Infirmary, Notting Hill813
Asylums205
General Hospitals1,726
Fever Hospitals60
2,804

If this 2,800 is added to the census population, then
the death-rate becomes 21.7; even now it is probably too
high, for at the time of taking the census there were
local circumstances at work which tended to make the
figures less reliable than usual, and there is little doubt
that the population then was somewhat under-enumerated.
At all events it is fairly certain that the 1891 population
is greater than that of 1891. There are various data
on which the increase might be estimated, but calculated
populations experience has shown to be so fallacious and
so wide of the mark that it is of little use to follow this
matter farther. In any case, 1893 was an unusual year,
both as to sickness and mortality.