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24
1909]
the returns respecting influenza on p. 87, and to cancer on p. 94, will partly
explain the cause of the increases, for the former was responsible for an increase
of 6 deaths, and the latter to 23.
In his annual letter to the Registrar-General, which is published in his
last annual report, Dr. T. H. Stevenson noticed in the English mortality that
not only was the death-rate at all ages the lowest on record, but at each group
of ages up to 65 years, and in each sex this was also the case; but above the
55-65 period the mortality had increased from an average of 86.2 per 1000
of the population at this age to 87.9. This increase was more marked in
the urban populations, for there the increase was from 90.95 per 1000 to 94.08
per 1000. On the other hand, in the rural counties the increase was 82.8 per
1000 to 83.72. In Islington the death-rate among the people of this age was
84.52 in 1908, and 93.11 in 1909, from which figures it may be noticed that the
local mortality rate approximates that of the English mortality, and is not so
good as the rural counties, which of course one would naturally anticipate.
The death-rate, then, among old people is increasing everywhere, and Islington
is no exception to the rule.
The Mortality in the Sub-Districts.—Just as it is impossible
to contrast accurately the death-rate of one town with that of another without
making corrections for the difference in the age and sex distribution of their
inhabitants, so also it is impossible to contrast the death-rates of the several
districts of the same borough. Thus in Islington, the Highbury sub-district
and the lower Holloway or Barnsbury sub-district are inhabited bypeople who are
different in their position in the world, in their habits, their occupations, their
housing, and, judging by their birth-rates, in their age incidence. To say,
therefore, that the death-rate is so much in one, and so much less in another
does not enable us to say whether the one rate is a high death-rate or the
other a low one. Unfortunately, the age and sex incidence is not known,
and therefore it is impossible to make a correction for them. It only remains,
therefore, to contrast the present returns for each district with those of previous
years, so as to ascertain if the mortality is increasing or decreasing
in them.
Tufnell.—In Tufnell sub-district there were 440 deaths, equal to an
annual death-rate of 12.46 per 1000 inhabitants, as compared with an average
of 475 deaths in the preceding seven years. The death-rate, although slightly
higher than that of 1908 (11.96), is, however, lower than any of the rates
preceding that year.
Upper Holloway—The number of deaths registered was 558, or 15 above
the average of the preceding seven years. The death-rate of 14.97 per 1000,
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