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46 REP0RT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF SAINT MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR OCTOBER, 1860.
No. XLIII.
The mortality which we have experienced during the month of
October has been unusually high. The registered deaths were 215,
the uncorrected mean of four years being 165. The excess is attributable
mainly to diseases of the zymotic class, and to acute and chronic
pulmonary maladies. The zymotic diseases occasioned altogether 72
deaths, against an un-corrected mean of 46; and the pulmonary diseases,
exclusive of consumption, 38 deaths against an un-corrected mean
of 21. During the first two weeks of the month the temperature was
below the average, (in the second week 5.8 degrees below it,) and in
the two latter it was warmer than usual, with a S.W. wind and much
atmospheric moisture. In the fourth week the mean temperature was
5.2 degrees above the average.
I regret to say that scarlet-fever, the prevalence of which I had to
report last October, has again broken out and carried off 27 persons;
the same number as died of it at the same time last year. The weekly
deaths were 7, 5, 3, and 12, showing the effect of the warm moist
weather towards the close of the month. I must repeat, that with
a disease so very infectious as this is, nothing but isolation of the sick
will suffice to prevent its spread. Of the 27 fatal cases, 8 occurred in
families residing in the better streets of the parish, while 19 occurred
in the families of labouring persons, or of those residing in streets or
courts where several families crowd into a single house. That, under
such circumstances, it should spread from member to member of such
families, and from one family to another, and from house to house, as
the poison from the multiplication of generating foci becomes more
concentrated, is just what might be anticipated. Of the 27 fatal cases,