View report page

66
DEATHS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The only "large public institution" within the parish in
which we are directly interested, is the parish infirmary and
workhouse, situate 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, Portobelloroad,
Notting Hill—a Roman Catholic Home for aged poor
persons, of both sexes, brought from various parts, largely from
Ireland; but the Registrar-General does not class it as a
"public institution." The deaths of non-parishioners at the
Marylebone Infirmary, Notting Hill (462), at the Brompton
Consumption Hospital (104). and at St. Joseph's House (29),
are excluded from our statistics, but will furnish occasion for
a few remarks later on. The deaths of parishioners registered
at the Parish Infirmary and Workhouse (458), at the Consumption
Hospital (4), at St. Joseph's House (2), and at
outlying institutions, &c. (353), were 817, or 28'3 per cent. on
total deaths; the percentage proportion of deaths in public
institutions in the Metropolis, generally, being 27.8. The
Registrar-General in his Annual Summary states that
' one in every seven deaths occurred in a workhouse or
workhouse infirmary, one in 45 in a Metropolitan Asylum
Hospital, one in 10 in some other hospital, and one in 50 in a
public lunatic or imbecile asylum." The increase in the
number of deaths in public institutions has been great and
continuous for years past.
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 were 458, as compared with 423, 440, and 442, in the
preceding three years respectively, and were equal to 16 0 per
cent on the total deaths. The quarterly numbers were 124,
116, 99, and 119; 243 deaths, therefore, occurred in the first