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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1896. 7
Although there is certainly some reason for alarm at the death.rate of the Borough
Road Sub-District, yet one cannot help feeling a good deal of satisfaction with the
figures for the whole parish during the past year. The annual death.rate for 1896
has dropped to 22.9 as against 23.7 in 1895. This fall of 08 brings the result within
4.7 of that of the whole of London. Moreover, if we take the recorded rate for the
past 50 years we find that there has been a decrease from thirty in the decade 1841.50
to 22.9 in 1896. It is gratifying to be able to report that the yearly decrease in the
death.rate has been maintained. Last year the death.rate of this parish touched the
lowest point recorded for the last half century; in fact, since official returns of this
kind have been systematically recorded. This result certainly appears to furnish a
striking proof of the value of sanitary progress to the community. At the same time
it should be borne ill mind that there is still room for large and permanent reduction
in the death.rate of St. George the Martyr. Were it possible to eliminate the Borough
Road Sub.District, or to reduce its mortality to a level with that of the other sub.
districts, the condition of St. George the Martyr, as a whole, would compare favourably
with many districts much more happily situated both as regards density of population
and general healthiness of surroundings.

Zymotic or Preventable Death Rate.
It may be noted that the term "zymotic" applies to the following seven diseases :
—Small pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, whooping cough, "fever" (i.e., typhus,
relapsing, puerperal, simple continued and typhoid) and diarrhoea.
I have called the above zymotic diseases "preventable," because I regard all
communicable disease, broadly speaking, as coming under that heading. Diarrhoea is a
symptom rather than a disease, and, although not usually communicated from one
person to another, it may be regarded as the almost invariable result of bad
environment. At the same time, it must be clearly understood that a vast amount of
preventable disease such as that due to alcoholism, is not zymotic in the ordinary sense
of the term—that is to say, a disease condition communicable from the sick to the
healthy.
The corrected death rate in St. George's, Southwark, from the seven principal
zymotic diseases was 3.4 per 1,000 in 1896, as against 3T per 1,000 in the whole of
London for the same period, and 2.8 in the thirty.three great towns of England and
Wales.