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The infantile mortality (deaths of infants per 1,000 births)
is 216.3 for the Inner Districts, and 132.5 for the Outer,
varying from a maximum 314.9 in Lambeth Church
1st., to a minimum 118.9 in Kennington 2nd. This
relationship between a high birth-rate and a high deathrate
points to an excessive infantile mortality, and to density
of population and its concomitant social and sanitary evils.
A high birth-rate (continuous) ought to lead to a low deathrate,
provided the sanitary and social conditions of a
District were good, and the young adult population were
vigorous and did not emigrate to other places. Taking
the chief zymotic diseases as a whole, the Inner Districts
suffered twice as much as the Outer, whilst in the case of
measles and whooping cough together, the proportion per
1,000 of the inhabitants to succumb was three and a half
times as great, and in the case of diarrhœal diseases,
twice as great, in the Inner as compared with the Outer
Districts. Diphtheria and Diarrhœa, too, helped to increase
the excessive zymotic rates in the Inner Districts; whilst
respiratory diseases, tubercular diseases and phthisis,
debility, atrophy, premature births and inanition, caused
the inhabitants of the Inner Districts to suffer out of all
proportion as compared with those of the Outer Districts.
These diseases, it will be noted, are such as are propagated
and increased in virulence by insanitary conditions, e.g.,
want of light, ventilation, and sufficient air space, overcrowding,
sewer or drain gas, want of personal cleanliness,
dampness, low-lying sites, &c., coupled with general
poverty, intemperance, and ignorance.
The above remarks apply to the whole of the Inner
Districts, but are specially applicable to Waterloo 1st. and
Lambeth Church 1st.—two districts whose population