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The percentage proportion of deaths in public institutions in the Metropolis in 1907, was 39.8;
viz., 20.5 in workhouses and workhouse infirmaries; l.9 in Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals;
14.2 in other hospitals, and 3.2 in public lunatic and imbecile asylums. The Registrar-General in
his Annual Summary states that "about one in every five deaths occurred in a workhouse or workhouse
infirmary, one in every 53 in a Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospital, one in every 7 in some
other hospital, and one in every 31 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 Borough Infirmary.—I am indebted to Dr. H. Percy Potter, the medical superintendent,
for the statistics of mortality at this important institution. The deaths, the causes of which
are set out in the table below, were 526, compared with 471, 552, and 541, in the preceding three
years respectively, and were equal to 21.3 per cent., or more than one-fifth, of all the deaths recorded
in the borough. The quarterly numbers were 168, 112, 128, and 118; 286 deaths, therefore,
occurred in the first and fourth or colder quarters, and 240 in the second and third or warmer
quarters of the year. The deaths included 277 of males and 249 of females. The ages at death
were:—Under one year, 57 (compared with 38, 72, and 71, in the preceding three years respectively);
between one and sixty, 242 (compared with 237, 270, and 231, in the preceding three
years), and at sixty and upwards, 227 (compared with 198, 210, and 239, in the preceding three

Seventeen inquests were held: in each of four cases a verdict of " natural death " was returned ;
thirteen deaths were caused by accidents.