View report page

38
Two other factors have an important bearing upon the prevalence
of respiratory diseases, these are insanitary conditions and the
circumstances and occupation of the inhabitants. It is now
recognised that overcrowding and defective ventilation, as well as
dampness of houses, have an important effect in predisposing persons
to diseases of the chest, both tubercular and otherwise. In future
reports it may be possible to show the occupations of persons with
the causes of their death.
Influenza was present to some extent, and 110 doubt added to the
number of deaths from respiratory organs; 29 deathswere attributed
directly to this disease.
Tubercular Diseases.—Deaths from this cause form also a large
proportion of the total. In London, after excluding deaths of
persons who had come up for treatment at its hospitals, there were
7,514 deaths from consumption of the lungs (phthisis pulmonalis),
equal to a rate of 1.66 per 1,000. In the central district of London
the mortality was 2.40, in the east district 2.06, in the north 1.59, in
the south 1.55, and in the west (in which group is the City of Westminster)
1.47. In the City the death-rate from this form of the
disease was 1.83. In some of the Metropolitan boroughs the rate
was under 1 per 1,000 (as in Lewisham 0.90, and Hampstead 0.91),
but in others it reached a higher figure, as in Southwark 2.51, and
Holborn 2.81.
Similar variations exist among the Wards of the City (Table
XVIII), Conduit, Grosvenor, and the Hamlet being only 0.5 per
1,000, whereas in St. John the rate reached 3.45, and in the Strand
4.23.
The phthisis deaths in the City were thus in the ratio of one in
every 8.5 deaths in Westminster, compared with one in 10.3 deaths
in all London.
In order to realise the loss to the community which this disease
causes, it must be recollected that for every death there are three or
four other persons suffering, and as the disease is a chronic one, the
long illness presses very severely on the resources of the patient's
family, with the result that frequently relief has to be sought from
hospitals and the Poor Law Guardians. During recent years considerable
attention has been paid to this class of disease, and the
public are beginning to recognise that it is of an infectious nature,
and that it can be prevented and might be entirely eradicated in the
same way as ague and typhus fever.
Tubercular disease is due to a living organism which finds its
way into the lungs and other parts of the body, where it grows and
which it gradually destroys. Certain persons, from hereditary