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Medical Officers, 7 only appear to have proved fatal, viz.:—1 at Streatham,
3 at Tooting, and 3 at Balham.
PUTNEY.—In my own sub-district, I find the number of registered
deaths, from all causes, during the three months constituting the
December quarter of 1857, to be 18 only, and to be distributed amongst
the different classes of society in the following proportions:—Nobility
and Gentry, 1; Professional class, including Merchants, Bankers, &c., 1;
Middle or Trading class, 6; Industrial or Labouring class, 10. Of the
latter deaths, 6 were of persons receiving at the time Union relief.
Deducting from these 6 deaths, one as the result of accident, and two from
infirmity of age (80 and 88 years) the mortality from actual disease,
although scarlatina and influenza prevailed extensively throughout
nearly the whole of the quarter, will have been unusually slight. The
18 deaths, from all causes and amongst all classes, is also a rate of mortality
greatly below the average. Amongst children under five years
three deaths only have occurred, which is a much smaller proportion
than usual at a season when lung diseases are so prevalent, and generally
so fatal amongst the very young. Of persons whose ages exceeded
80 there died as many as 4; but as these latter may be justly said to
have succumbed to old age and infirmity, the actual deaths from disease,
during the quarter, may be set down as 14 only.
Of the zymotic class of diseases, diarrhæa proved fatal to one person
and fever to another. I carefully inspected the house in which the
latter death took place and, although I found its sanitary condition to
admit of some improvement, I discovered nothing which could be
viewed as a cause of the affection.
Mortality of the Quarter.
The manuscript weekly returns of deaths occurring in the several
parishes comprising the Wandsworth District, now so obligingly and
regularly furnished by the Registrar-General, have been carefully collated
and localized for the quarter under notice, and the results given
in Tables I and II in the Appendix. A reference to these tables, and
a comparison of them with those appended to the Report of the previous
or September quarter, will furnish the gratifying fact of there