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255
SUMMARY.
The broad facts as to disease and death in Finsbury during 1904
may be readily stated. The crude death rate was 21.1 and the
corrected death rate 22.0 per 1,000 living. This will in all
probability be found to be one of the highest death rates in
London (the death rate of which as a whole in 1904 was 16.7 per
1000). Out of the total number of deaths (2,084) 965, or 46 per
cent, occurred in hospitals, workhouse infirmaries, asylums, &C.
As in 1903, the death rate was highest, for all causes, in the oneroomed
tenements, and lowest in the homes of four rooms or
upwards.
Nearly one quarter of the total deaths, or 522, occurred in
children under twelve months of age, which yields an infant
mortality rate of 161 per 1,000 births. Many, if not most, of
these infant deaths were directly preventable (see p. 18).
The chief infectious diseases caused 282 deaths, and consumption
caused another 251 deaths. Seventy-nine deaths were directly
attributed to cancer, and 44 to alcoholism. Turning to cases of
infectious sickness certified to the Public Health Department, there
were, during 1904, 806 cases of notifiable infectious disease, 802
cases of measles, and 210 cases of phthisis. The total number of
cases of disease certified was therefore 1818.
CAUSES AND CONDITIONS.
When we come to consider what are the causes and conditions of
which these mortal statistics are the result, we are met by a large
body of facts not readily to be stated in figures. There are, however,
some figures which bear upon the matter.
First, there is a density of 19.1 houses per acre in Finsbury as
compared with 8.2 in London generally. That is to say, the land
in Finsbury is more than twice as densely covered with houses as
the land in London generally. There are also, of necessity, fewer
open spaces.