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REPORT
ON THE
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR, SEPTEMBER, 1869.
No. CLXIX.
The death rate of the parish, during the five weeks ending
October 2nd, has been as nearly as possible the average death rate of
September during the ten years last past. The number of deaths
registered was 393. With respect to the total amount of public sickness,
that is to say, the cases which come under the care of the Medical
Officers of the parish and the public institutions, it has been decidedly
less than in the corresponding period of the previous three years.
Only two diseases have been any source of anxiety, but of these, one
namely, Scarlet Fever has been prevailing to an extent, only equal to
that observed in 1863, when 90 cases were recorded in the five weeks.
During the five weeks to which this report relates, no less than 123 cases
have been recorded, and probably this is not half the number that has
happened in the parish. The number of deaths registered in the
month has been 44; in 1863 the number of deaths was 36. This
disease still shows a preference for the eastern side of the parish, but
has been latterly extending to the western. With the hope of possibly
doing some good by the diffusion of warning as to the contagiousness
of the disease, and of giving information as to the mode of arresting
its spread in a house, I have circulated, wherever it seemed desirable,
copies of Dr. Budd's "directions," and have also endeavoured to induce
the poor to make use of appropriate disinfectants. I have also issued
a letter to the masters and managers of all the public day schools,
requesting that great care should be exercised in admitting children
from infected houses to mix with others. With the imperfect means at
my disposal, however, it is quite impossible to cope with the ignorance
and recklessness which, especially among the poor, favour and almost
compel the extension of the disease by contagion. In one case which
came under my notice, a family with scarlet fever left a room in the
basement of a house in Upper Bemerton street, and it was immediately