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REPORT
on the
SANITARY CONDITION OF ST. MARY, ISLINGTON,
FOR DECEMBER, 1869.
No. CLXXII.
Making the necessary allowances for the extra week calculated into
December of 1863 and 1868, the mortality registered in the Parish
during the month has been 52 below the mean corrected mortality of
the previous ten Decembers. The total number of deaths registered
amounted to 437. Neither, as compared with the last two years, is the
amount of public sickness, 3425 cases, to be regarded as excessive.
Hooping cough has not yet fallen to the average of the month, but has
not been more than half as prevalent as it was in December 1868.
Scarlet fever has continued to decline in prevalence, only 50 cases
having been recorded in the public practice during the five weeks,
against 104 cases recorded during the four weeks of November. The
mortality from this disease, however, remains stationary, 68 deaths
having been registered against 56 in November (for comparison the
former may be reduced by 3-, namely, to 55). This discrepancy is due
to the fact that the latter part of the autumn and the winter seasons are
most unfavourable to recovery from this disease, especially when
the weather is damp and cold. It furnishes a striking illustration of a
truth I have on many occasions endeavoured to impress, that our
national mortality records furnish no fair index of the prevalence oxfluctuations
of certain important kinds of disease, but that it is necessary
to supplement them with records of sickness.
Since my last Report, I have registered 16 fresh cases of relapsing
fever, making a total of 33 cases in the two months. Two of these cases
proved fatal, namely, one of the cases in Rose and Crown Court, and
an old man who was removed to the Fever Hospital from Peabody
Square. Of the sixteen fresh cases, eight occurred in Rose and Crown
Court, one of them being a woman who went from Chapel Street to live
in one of the rooms of an infected family at No. 11. Four other cases,