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47
REPORT
ON THE
SANITARY CONDITION OF SAINT MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR NOVEMBER, 1860.
No. XLIV.
The registered deaths for the month of November have been 226;
and although less numerous than those of the two former Novembers, they
exceed the un-corrected mean of four years by 13, no large number,
when the rapid increase of our population is considered. The deaths
by diseases of the zymotic class amounted to 44, less by one-fifth than
the mean of four years: last month these deaths amounted to 72. The
deaths from scarlet fever have fallen from 27 last month to 6. There
has been only one death recorded from continued fever, and one from
diphtheria.
A great many old people have died during the month, 5 of whom
were between 80 and 90 years of age; one an independent gentleman
was aged 95, and another a widow aged 92 years.
Two deaths upon which inquests were held demand some special
remarks. One was of a fine little boy, the son of a gentleman residing
at Beresford Lodge, Highbury New Park, whose death resulted from
poisoning by arsenic, after an acute illness of 38 hours. Within the
few days preceding he had been playing with toys in a cupboard of the
breakfast-room, and had also while assisting in clearing it out, sucked a
piece of lace which was lying there. Both the room and cupboard
were papered with a green flock paper. After death arsenic was found
in the stomach and liver; and the paper itself was shown to contain
one-third of its whole weight of the highly poisonous arsenite
of copper (Scheele's green), a piece six inches square, containing