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59
[1899
returns the deaths of persons who were treated in their fatal
illnesses in Public Instituti ns outside Islington, although they very
rightly excluded strangers who had come into the Parish for
treatment here. That this mode of tabulating deaths must have
caused very grave errors I am assured, and I will illustrate it by an
example. In the year 1885 the Registrar-General undertook the
task of distributing all the deaths in the Public Institutions to the
sanitary districts to which they should rightly be referred. Now,
in that year I find that my predecessor debited Islington with only
38 deaths from Small Pox, whereas they should have numbered
129. As a matter of fact during that year 156 persons died here,
but as many of the deaths, particularly at the Small Pox Hospital,
were those of persons who had come here for treatment, they were
rightly not included in the returns, while Islingtonians who died in
the Metropolitan Asylums Board's Hospitals were also, but wrongly,
excluded.
The study of the table as a whole shows that there has been a
marvellous and most gratifying decrease of Small Pox in Islington
since 1885. Indeed the decrease is startling, and speaks well for
the manner in which up to a very recent date the Board of
Guardians discharged the very responsible duty of administering
the Vaccination Acts. Latterly, vaccination has been allowed to
fall into abeyance.
The state of vaccination in Islington is shown in Table C
on page 175, and it affords much food for serious thought.

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