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REPOET
ON THE
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR NOVEMBER, 1869.
No. CLXXI.
Both the public sickness prevalent during the four weeks ending
November 27th, and the mortality in the parish have been unusually
great. Three hundred and ninety-six deaths were registered, or 31
above the corrected average for November during the previous ten years.
The excess of mortality is noticeable chiefly in the class of “zymotic”
diseases, which occasioned 112 deaths, and in the class of "local''
diseases, which occasioned 184 deaths. The cases of sickness attended
at the public expense were 3206, that is nearly equal to the number
recorded in November last year. Probably the distress prevailing from
deficiency of work in the lower strata of society will partly account for
the swelling of this total. Living, as these people commonly do, from
hand to mouth, and making no provision in times of prosperity for those
depressions of trade which recur from time to time, the misfortune of
sickness in the family drives them to seek medical aid from charitable
sources. Unhappily, having once learnt the lesson of dependence, a
return to self-reliance is a slow and laborious proceeding.
The totals of both sickness and death are chiefly swollen by the
continued prevalence of scarlet fever and of pulmonary diseases. With
respect to the former, it will be noticed that our monthly cases have
fallen slightly from 137 in October to 104 in November, and the deaths
have been 56 against 53 in October. Cold or damp weather is
unfavourable to recovery from this disease. We have had no such
mortality as this from scarlet fever in November since 1859, when, with
a much smaller population, we registered 38 deaths. It has occasioned
untold domestic sorrow, in some instances sweeping away all the
children in a family, and in one instance both the mother and children.
Happily, the prevalence of the disease is now beginning to abate, as it
invariably does on the setting in of cold weather. The cold damp
weather has also proved fatal to children suffering from hooping cough.
Pulmonary diseases taken together (bronchitis, pneumonia, and
pleurisy), have furnished us with 852 cases; last year the total was
precisely the same. The mortality from these diseases throughout the
parish, however, has been much heavier: 112 deaths having been
registered against 85 in November last year.