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62
Sickness and Mortality amongst the Parochial Poor.
The amount, nature, and fatality of the sickness which
occurred amongst the parochial poor during the year are
exhibited in Table 5 (Appendix). The total amount of
sickness is found to have been considerably less than half the
average of the previous 10 years, and its resulting fatality
three-tenths less than such average ; while the amount of
Epidemic disease was upwards of one-third less, and its
fatality nearly half less than its corresponding average.
This record of the relative amount of sickness, and of its
resulting fatality, occurring amongst a considerable portion
of the population, becomes of great service in affording the
means—indeed the only means—of estimating the amount
of sickness which has prevailed generally throughout the
sub-district, and furnishes another valuable indication of
the state of the public health, in a manner which the
death-rate alone fails to supply; for the latter, while it
shows the number of deaths which have occurred in a
given population, affords no clue to the amount of sickness
from which those deaths have resulted. By accepting the
proportion which the deaths bore to the cases of sickness
amongst the parochial poor as a measure of the proportion
borne by the deaths to the cases of sickness amongst all
classes, the entire amount of sickness which prevailed last
year is thus estimated to have affected about 30 per cent.
of the populations, while the average amount of the
preceding five years was 51 per cent. This calculation,
although approximate only, cannot err by exaggeration,
and furnishes further confirmation of the evidence derived
from the figures in the Table of the highly favourable state
of the health of the Sub-district during the past year.
Inquests, Violent Deaths, &c.—Twenty-one inquests
were held during the year with the following results,
viz.:—
For the sake of accuracy, it should be stated that four of the cases (two of
Small Pox, and two of Fever) contained in the Table died in the Metropolitan Asylums
set apart for the treatment of those diseases, and that these deaths do not app ar in
the Table.