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74
REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR MARCH, 1866.
No. CVII.
The registered deaths in the five weeks ending March 31 st, amounted
to 452, a number which exceeds the corrected average of March by 54
deaths. This excess appears due to the unusual low temperature of the
month, which has ranged week by week from 2 to 5.6 degrees below
the mean of 50 years. A large portion of the mortality was amongst
persons suffering in various ways from chronic diseases, such as consumption,
and the maladies which specially afflict old age. The amount
of general sickness has been comparatively high.
One hundred and six deaths resulted from diseases of the organs of
respiration. Thirteen are counted under the head "laryngitis." This
is an unusually large number, but, with the exception of one, they were
not strictly cases of laryngitis at all, but of a spasmodic disease (commonly
indeed associated with more or less catarrhal inflammation of the
larynx) known under the designation of "laryngismus stridulus," or
"spasmodic croup." During the whole of the last ten years I have
never had to record in any one month so many deaths from this
affcction.
Some of the deaths from fever were of tramps sent to the Fever
Hospital, but still there has been a good deal both of typhus and typhoid
fever in various parts of the parish. In two houses in Adam's Place
nine cases of typhus occurred. The owner of the house, who had some
time ago promised the Sanitary Committee to put the premises into a
proper condition, but had not kept her promise, died some weeks back,
and the new owner has consented to an order of the magistrate for the
closure of the houses until made fit for human habitation. A case of
fever has also occurred again in Mildmay Avenue, where it will be
recollected fever broke out in April, 1864. There was then great
overcrowding, and the same thing has recurred: the houses are again
overflowing with inhabitants.