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enquiry into the different proportions of deaths produced by certain diseases in
different districts in England. It is there shown that the three classes of disease
given above as Pulmonary Affections, Alvine Flux, and the Nervous Diseases of
Children, are both absolutely and relatively the chief causes of high mortality.
Of these three classes then, it appears that this parish had a very high death-rate
from one, the Pulmonary class, and a moderately low death-rate from the other
two. Of every thousand deaths, 313 were due to the pulmonary class, whilst
in the whole metropolis only 301 of every thousand were due to this class of
causes. Of every thousand male deaths, 323 were from pulmonary disease, and
of every thousand female deaths, 303 were from that class of disease.
Till recently it had generally been supposed that the amount of Zymotic
disease was the best criterion of the insalubrity of places, or their need of
sanitary improvements; but more careful investigation seems to indicate that
Pulmonary disease is equally important, if not more so as a measure of this condition.
If this be so, the mortality registers of St. Pancras show the necessity
for sanitary reform, and render it highly important to enquire to what cause a
pulmonary mortality, so much above the average of England generally, and
somewhat in excess of the rest of London, is to be ascribed. Some of these
causes will be alluded to in a later part of this Report.
Zymotic Diseases.—The number of deaths from these diseases was 1,168,
being more than a quarter of the total mortality. Last year the number was
only 839 ; the great excess in this year's return is due to Scarlatina chiefly,
which, together with Diphtherite, was fatal to 406 persons, of whom 369 were
children under 10 years of age. This is a most fearful mortality, higher than
that of the cholera in 1848-49, which gave in St. Pancras 360 deaths. It is also
higher than the cholera mortality of 1854. Of every thousand children living in
1858, under the age of 10 years, rather more than 8 died of Scarlatina and
Throat Disease. Scarlatina is a disease of an infectious nature, always present
in London, but every few years coming with greatly increased virulence; it
appears to be less under the control of sanitary measures than most of the
epidemic disorders. It can most frequently be traced to infection, and its spread
might be much diminished by greater care on the part of those whose families
are suffering from the disease. It is very frequently propagated in the public
schools by children being sent to them from houses or rooms in which persons
are suffering from the disease, or before they themselves are sufficiently recovered
from an attack to be free from infection ; it is also often spread by means of bed
linen, which is not properly purified before being again used. In the houses of
the poor, too, it very readily spreads from room to room; each being occupied by
its crowd of inmates. It is also at times propagated by street cabs, which are
used to convey patients suffering from such diseases to and from Hospitals, as
well as the corpses of those who have died from these maladies. The Scarlatina
deaths have been distributed among the sub-districts as follows :—
Regent's Park 50 Tottenham Court 74
Gray's Inn 52 Somer's Town 101
Camden Town 41 Kentish Town 41
The deaths ascribed to Diphtherite and Malignant Sore Throat, not Scarlatinal,
have numbered 47, and have been thus distributed :—
Regent's Park 13 Tottenham Court 4
Gray's Inn 3 Somer's Town 12
Camden Town 5 Kentish Town 10