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7
Street. A "clerk in holy orders," set 30, was returned
as having died of the same disease on October 9th, at an
hotel in Brook Street. As this was the second death
from alleged zymotic disease, reported to have occurred
in that house within a short time, it was thought proper
to ascertain the facts of the case, which were, that both
patients had come to town ill, and that the arrangements
of the hotel were quite healthy. Enquiries of this nature
are a great protection to the public. They are not always
needless in the case of the rich, who go to expensive lodgings
; but still less are they superfluous in the case of
poor friendless " maids-of-all-work," who are compelled to
sleep in the kitchen, the part of the house the most liable
to dampness and drain smells, and their consequences—
fever and rheumatism.
Among the deaths arising from mental suffering we
observe, that there were 3 cases of suicide: one, a male,
strangled himself by means of a scarf; another from
drowning, when insane, in the Serpentine; and the third,
a female, who threw herself from a window.
There were also 4 deaths from want of breast-milk,
and 1 in a child aged three months from suffocation.
Fractures proved fatal to eight persons, four of whom
were non-parishioners.
II. The Sickness. The number of cases attended
gratuitously this quarter, in the Hanover and May Fair
sub-districts, by the physicians and surgeons of the
parish, and of the branch dispensary, 48, Mount Street,
was 781, against 856 attended in the corresponding
quarter of last year. There may be some disturbing
causes which render these figures not entirely exact