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9
County Asylum, which receives its inmates from the
whole County of Surrey, and, in consequence, unduly exalts
the death-rate of this District,
The most noteworthy circumstance in the Table is
the numerical preponderance of Diseases of the Respiratory
Organs, which, as in the year 1874, were so numerous, and
attended with such great fatality, as to have created a
suspicion of their derivation from some Zymotic cause.
Epidemic Diseases.—Next to the death-rate, the most
important means for elucidating the health of the District is
presented by an examination of the amount of fatality which
lias resulted from Epidemic disease, and of the relative proportion
which it has borne to the total deaths; for the
fluctuations in the death-rate are found to be very constantly
dependent on the variations in the amount of fatality
resulting from these diseases. On a reference to the Table,
(No. 4 Appendix,) it will be seen that the total number of
deaths which resulted from the seven principal Epidemic
diseases in the entire District was 472, being 32 more than
occurred in the previous year, and closely corresponding
with the average of the preceding ten years ; but the ratio
per cent. (15.2) which these diseases bore to the deaths
from all causes was much less than a similar average (19.5).
The diseases of this class, which caused by far the greatest
mortality, are seen to have been Scarlet Fever, Diarrhoea,
and Whooping-Cough, the two former having been equally
fatal. The prevalence and fatality of these diseases varied
very considerably in the several Sub-districts. Whooping
Cough and Diarrhoea prevailed generally, while ScarletFever
principally affected Battersea, Clapham partially,
Wandsworth and Streatham slightly, and Putney not at all,
—at least, fatally. Thus, of the 134 deaths which occurred
from that disease, 103 took place in Battersea, 22 in the
contiguous parish of Clapham, and 5 only in the adjoining
parish of Wandsworth. The difference in incidence of
fatality from these diseases in the several Sub-Districts is
more concisely given in the following Table, which shows