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49
WANDSWORTH.
During the year 1888, disease and its attendant mortality
in this sub-district were of much larger amount
than in the year 1887. The latter, however, it will be
remembered, was a year of comparative immunity from
epidemics and of an unusually low death-rate. The
excess of mortality in the past year was in great measure
attributable to the occurrence of two severe epidemics of
Whooping-Cough and Measles, the former of which
prevailed with great fatality during the first six months,
and the latter with almost equally fatal effect daring the
latter six months of the year. Such excess, however,
was not wholly due to those epidemics, for diseases of
the non-zymotic classes also showed a large increase of
mortality, the greatest proportion of which was furnished
by diseases of the organs of respiration. Illustrations of
these conditions will be furnished in the following pages.
Vital Statistics.
Population. The mean population of the sub-district during
the year 1888, calculated according to the official method
of the Registrar-General, amounted to 33,963. This estimate
assumes a continuance of the same rate of increase
since the period of the last census, as that which prevailed
during the ten preceding years, and although sufficiently
trustworthy when applied to large populations it is open
to the objection, at least in this and most of the suburbs
of the Metropolis, that it does not contain the means of
computing the increase that may have resulted from im-