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Report of the County Medical Officer—General. 5
It will be seen from the above table that the birth-rates of the several sanitary districts vary
greatly, ranging, when the rates for the year 1914 are compared, from 10-2 in the City of London,
to 32-1 in Shoreditch.
Deaths.
The number of deaths in the Administrative County of London in 1914 (52 weeks) was 64,994
giving an annual death rate of 14*4 per 1,000 of the estimated population. The death-rate in
successive periods is given in table I, page 40. The death-rate in each year since 1840 in relation
to the mean death-rate of the period 1841-1914 is shown in diagram (C).

It will be seen from the foregoing table (comparing the corrected death-rates) that in the quinquennium
1909-13, Shoreditch (19.2)had the highest rate and Lewisham (10.4) the lowest, and that in the
year 1914 Shoreditch (19.6) also had the highest, and Lewisham (10.7) the lowest. The death-rates in each
of the four quarters of the year 1914 were as follows : first quarter 16.1; second quarter, 131; third
quarter, 13.3 ; and fourth quarter, 15.3 per 1,000 persons living.
The Decline of the Marriage, Birth and Death Rates.
An important consideration to be borne in mind with regard to the observed phenomena is, as
already noted on page 2, the appreciable effect that is exerted by migration of population upon
the marriage, birth and mortality rates. This subject has been referred to in previous reports,
but the question may, perhaps, be again illustrated by reference to Diagrams A and B, showing
marriages and births in London. Looked at, broadly, it might perchance have been anticipated
that the decline in the marriage rate from a high level in the fifties and sixties, to a distinctly lower
level in the eighties, nineties and onwards, would have brought about a fall in the birth rate, commencing
in the eighties and steadily continuing for thirty or forty years. This is exactly what has
happened; for the minor oscillations or ripples in the chart showing the marriage rate could not of course
be expected to produce ripples of like magnitude on the declining wave of the birth rate, for the obvious
reason that children are not being born exclusively to the newly married. The objection, however, is raised
by those who regard the fall of the birth rate as an artificial rather than a natural phenomenon, that, if the
birth-rate be calculated on the numbers of married women, and due correction be made for the age
Death rates
all causes.
Death-rates
in London
boroughs.