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17
PUTNEY AND ROEHAMPTON.
The number of deaths registered from all causes, and amongst
all classes, in this sub-district during 1858, is somewhat in excess of the
number registered in 1856 and 1857 respectively. The corrected average
of the 10 years preceding 1858 is a fraction under 100. The number
of deaths in 1856, was 92; in 1857, 88; in 1858, 118. The excess in
1858 above the two previous years, is due to the operation of three
especial causes—1. The unusual fatality of zymotic diseases during the
pasts year; thus as many as 15 deaths occurred in 1858 from scarletfever,
diphtheria, and hooping-cough; whilst in 1857 the registered
mortality from the above mentioned maladies was one only. 2. The
unusual mortality from diseases peculiar to infancy. In 1858, for
example, the deaths of 24 children were registered from hydrocephalus,
scrofula, tabes mesenterica, and convulsions, against- only 10 in 1857.
3. The large number of deaths from causes unconnected with disease in
1858; thus the unusual number of 11 infants died at or soon after
birth, from low vitality, the majority of which were prematurely born ;
4 persons came by their deaths by drowning; and 2 died from old age,
at 83 and 93.
A circumstance tending in some degree to increase the registered rate
of mortality of this sub-district, and to cause it to be higher in 1858
than in the two previous years, is the recent establishment in Putney of
the Royal Hospital for Incurables, the deaths in which institution are all
required to be registered in the parish, although the patients are admissible
from every part of the country.
Allowing then for this and other equally evident special causes of
increase, the natural death rate from actual disease, and amongst the
bond fide parishioners, in contradistinction to the registered death rate,
from all causes, including non-parishioners, and inmates of public
institutions, may be fairly set down as being considerably under the
average of the preceding ten years.
Of the 118 deaths recorded in the following table, it will be seen that
21 were the result of diseases of the zymotic class. Although this
number of deaths is beyond the average, it cannot be looked upon as a
large per centage in an estimated population of upwards of 6,000. It
should be remarked, that 3 of the 12 deaths enumerated in this
table, under the head "Scarlatina and Malignant Diseases of the
Throat," were the result of diphtheria.
B