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34
DEATHS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The only large public institution in which we are directly interested, is the borough infirmary
and workhouse, situated in the Town sub-district. There are several minor public or quasi-public
institutions, but, with one exception, they do not furnish occasion for special remark. The excepted
institution is St. Joseph's House, Portobello-road, Notting-hill—a Roman Catholic Home for aged
poor persons of both sexes, brought from various parts, largely from Ireland; but which is not
classed by the Registrar-General as a public institution. The deaths of non-parishioners at the
Marylebone Infirmary, Notting-hill (521), at the Brompton Consumption Hospital (96), and at St.
Joseph's House (34), are excluded from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for a few remarks
later on. The deaths of parishioners at the Parish Infirmary and Workhouse (476), at the Consumption
Hospital (2), at St. Joseph's House (2), St. Marylebone Infirmary (1), and at outlying
institutions, &c. (283), were 764, or 28.3 per cent. on total deaths; the percentage proportion of
deaths in public institutions in the Metropolis, generally, being 30.5, viz., 15.8 in Workhouses and
Workhouse Infirmaries ; 2.0 in Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals ; 10.3 in other hospitals, and
2.4 in Public Lunatic and Imbecile Asylums. The Registrar-General in his Annual Summary
states that "about one in every six deaths occurred in a workhouse or workhouse infirmary, one in
51 in a Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital, one in ten in some other hospital, and one in 42 in
a public lunatic or imbecile asylum." The increase in the number of deaths in public institutions
has been great and continuous for many years.
The Parish Infirmary and Workhouse.— I am indebted to Dr. H. Percy Potter, the medical
superintendent, for the statistics of mortality at these important institutions. The deaths set out in
the Table below were 476, as compared with 493, 497, and 603, in the three preceding years respectively,
and were equal to 17.6 per cent., or more than one-sixth of the deaths in the borough. The quarterly
numbers were 152, 102, 111, and 111 : 263 deaths, therefore, occurred in the first and fourth or
colder quarters, and 213 in the second and third or warmer quarters of the year. The deaths
included 240 of males, and 236 of females. The ages at death were:—Under one year, 58 (as
compared with 81, 64, and 73, in the three preceding years respectively); between one and sixty,
213 (as compared with 255, 221, and 309, in the three preceding years), and at sixty and upwards,
205 (as compared with 157, 212, and 221, in the three preceding years).

Thirteen inquests were held: the cause of death was natural in 4 cases; and injury, in some
form, in 9 cases.