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REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR JANUARY, 1868.
No. CXXIX.
A miserable month of snow, rain, and wind has resulted in a mortality
very much below the average for the last ten Januaries. The number
of deaths registered was only 338 against a corrected mean of 403, the
mortality of the corresponding weeks of the previous ten years. There
was no one class of diseases the deaths from which manifested any
remarkable or unusual predominence.
This satisfactory state of the public health leaves me at liberty to
say a word respecting the new Vaccination Act, which came into force
on the first day of January. I am not about to subject it to criticism.
It is on all hands, I believe, admitted to be a somewhat lame piece of
legislation, but I presume it is as good as the present state of public
opinion would have tolerated. When the public mind is better
educated, and the prejudice engendered by the disappointment of
extravagant expectations, which a due acquaintance with the very
constitution of man ought from the first to have moderated, have passed
away,we may hope that Parliament will adopt some more satisfactory
method of ensuring to our population the protection against small-pox
which effectual vaccination is calculated to confer. In the meantime
we are bound to make the best of what is placed in our hands. Two
clauses alone I wish now to direct attention to: The 26th clause
directs that the Eegistrar of Births in each district "shall, within one
month after the first day of January and the first day of July in each
year, make a list of all cases in which certificates of vaccination have