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LOCAL SUMMARIES.
WANDSWORTH.
An examination of the Mortuary Returns and of the
Parochial Records of Sickness and Mortality furnishes
evidence that the health of this sub-district during the past
three years has gradually lapsed from the high status which
it had previously acquired, and that during the past year it
was still more unfavourable. The extent of this deterioration,
however, is not alarming, inasmuch as the death-rate
will be found to be still within the average rate of the
entire District.
The cause of this lowered vitality is not to be found in
the prevalence of any special epidemic nor in the preponderance
of epidemic diseases generally; for, contrary to the
usual circumstance, which from its constancy has become to
be accepted as a rule, of the death-rate fluctuating with the
greater or less fatality from diseases of the epidemic class,
the deaths from these diseases during the past year bore to
the total deaths a proportion less than the average of the
past eight years. And, as it has been shown by the Registrar
General, that a less favourable condition of the public health
has been common to the whole Metropolis during the past
three years, it may be fairly assumed that the falling off of
the health of this sub-district with that of others has been
due to general rather than to local, and therefore more preventable
causes.