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Table II. shows the number of new cases of sickness entered during the year
upon the books of the medical officer of the parish, and those of the two Dispensaries
and the Pentonville Convict Prison. It amounts to 35,430, being swollen, as I shall
have occasion to observe, by an excess of cases of bowel complaint, from which, as is
customary in similar epidemic seasons, the population at large suffered more than in
ordinary seasons.
CAUSES OF DEATH, and NATURE OF PREVAILING SICKNESS.
I will take these in order, as they are mentioned in tables I. and II.
Small Pox, to our disgrace as a nation which gave to the world the preventive
of vaccination, has throughout the year been prevailing to an unusual degree in
London, and we in Islington have had our share. The deaths from this disease
amounted to 67, which, at the current rate of fatality, viz.:— one case in ten, is
equivalent to saying that throughout the parish there happened about 670 cases.
No doubt the vaccination and re-vaccination of a population so unwieldy as that of
the Metropolis is a difficult thing to manage satisfactorily ; but this is no excuse for
lukewarmness in so important a public duty. It is said that some special legislation
is contemplated to meet the exceptional circumstances of London in this respect.
Certainly a change is needed; and no change can very well be a change for the worse.
Of the other diseases of infancy, Measles and Hooping Cough, especially the
former, have been very prevalent during the year; the deaths from measles amounted
to 152, and those from hooping cough to 220.
The deaths from Diarrhoea amounted to 165, by no means an excessive number;
and 142 of them occurred in children under three years of age. These 142 deaths
are probably the representative of the ordinary diarrhoeal influence at work every
summer. I have no doubt that early treatment had a good deal to do with the low
fatality.
The deaths from Cholera, during the year, are stated on the table at 75. I include
in this heading cases of Choleraic Diarrhoea.
CHOLERA.
History of the origin and progress of the epidemic in Islington.
The first case of cholera which occurred in this parish was on July 23rd, at
No. 17, Henry Place, in the White-Conduit sanitary district. The woman who was
attacked had, as it appears from information subsequently obtained, just come
from the east end of London, where cholera was at that time prevailing to a great