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13. In order to remove the causes of a high mortality, it is not only necessary to
know what are the diseases or classes of diseases that occasion it, but also where,
in what parts of a district, and among what ranks of our population the fatality
exists. Much of the time of an officer of health is necessarily devoted to this
inquiry; and in each of my reports I have endeaveured to represent as clearly as
I could, in various tables, the results that I have been able to arrive at—not only
with respect to the mortality generally, but to that of infants in particular, and
of those classes of disease which occupy the most prominent places in the returns.
With a view to indicate the relation borne by the mortality under these more
important conditions to the rank in life of the individuals, I have this year a
contribution of a different kind to offer. From the street-list that I keep, I have
taken out the names of 109 streets and places, the houses of which, I know, are
occupied almost uniformly by single families in easy circumstances, and counted up
the deaths in them during the three years (1856-7-8) from all causes, from zymotic
and tubercular diseases, and also of children under five years of age. I have formed
another list of 150 streets, &c., the houses in which I know to be either let to two or
more families, or occupied by those of labouring men. I have compared the totals
of deaths in these two distinct classes of our community, and here is the result:—
No. of
Streets,
etc.
Total
Deaths in
3 years.
Deaths
from
Zymotic
Diseases.
Per Ct. of
all
Deaths.
Dea»hs
from
tubercular
Diseases.
Per Ct. of
all
Deaths.
Deaths
under
5 years.
Per Ct. of
I a11
Deaths.
Class I.
Occupied by the wealthier
part of our population
109
734
133
18.1
107
14.5
216
29.4
Class II.
Occupied by the less
wealthy, or labouring part
of our population
150
2237
687
30.7
333
14.8
1333
5.98
14. These numbers will almost speak for themselves. Of course they do not indicate
the absolute liability of the two classes to suffer from these forms of mortality, but only
of their liability to them relatively to the mortality from other diseases. The former
could only be settled by a comparison with the number of persons of each class living—
a datum which I do not possess. I may state that I selected the streets for comparison
as fairly as I could, according to my knowledge of the nature of their occupancy,
taking into account none but those respecting which I was certain.
SICKNESS.
The Table of Sickness (Table IV.) that is given, as it presented itself at the several
Institutions from which I receive returns, and among the poor who are attended by
the Parochial Surgeons is constructed in such a manner as to show a total only in
respect of those cases which can with strictness be said to belong to our Parish, the
sickness in the two Special Hospitals being placed in columns apart from the rest.
The only comparison with the returns of the previous year that I can institute concerns
the sickness at the Workhouse, the Infant Poor-house and the out-patient
paupers at large; selecting as in Table V. some of the more important forms of disease.
This Table renders apparent the greater prevalence during the year of smallpox,
chicken pox, measles, scarlet fever, hooping cough, erysipelas, thrush, ague, and acute
diseases of the organs of respiration. On the other hand diarrhoea was reduced to
nearly half the number of cases met with in 1857, and there was a very much smaller
number of continued fever. Of the 358 cases of small pox that entered the Hospital
on Highgate Hill 32 were from the Parish of Islington. There has been during the
year an increase of this disease throughout the Metropolis.
I am informed by Dr. Scurrah that not a single case of true Typhus has been received
during the year into the London Fever Hospital from any part of this Parish.