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portion of 100 to 1434; if the death rates from the above mentioned diseases
had been exactly the same in St. Pancras, as in London at large, we should
have had from Diarrhoea, 222, instead of 206 deaths ; from Cholera, 388, instead
of 112; from Scarlatina, 131, instead of 124 ; from Typhus, 186, instead of 170;
from Small Pox, 96, instead of 59; from Hooping Cough, 204, instead of 211 ;
from Pulmony disease, 1,547, instead of 1,615; from Phthisis, 647, instead of
741.
It thus appears, that from Diarrhoea, Cholera, Scarlatina, Typhus and Small
Pox, the deaths in St. Pancras were proportionally not so numerous as in all
London. From Pulmonary disease and Consumption, St. Pancras suffered a
considerably higher mortality than London as a whole. This corresponds with
what has been observed in previous years. It has been ascertained recently,
that the mortality from Consumption is much reduced by thorough drainage
of the subsoil. The completion of the sewerage in this Parish in the parts not
yet supplied with sewers, would, in all probability, have the effect of reducing
the undue mortality from Consumption.
Cholera..—The year 1866 was characterized by the occurrence of epidemic
Cholera, which carried off 112 persons who lived in St. Pancras, including the
cases of Choleraic Diarrhoea, which is usually only a milder term for the same
disease. In the week ending July 21st, there was considerably more diarrhoea
under the care of the Parish Surgeons than in previous weeks; in the week ending
14th July, the weather had become suddenly very hot. The first case of undoubted
Cholera which proved fatal in this parish, was that of a boy aged 6 years, who
came from a house in Mile End, where Cholera was at the time raging severely,
he died on the 22nd July ; the next day, his sister, aged one year died ; on the
same day, 23rd July, a solicitor died in Mecklenburgh Square, after about 36
hours' illness of genuine Asiatic Cholera. His house was badly drained; he had
been to Wimbledon to a review of the Volunteers the day on which he was
taken ill; he had not been, so far as I could learn, in communication with any
cholera patients. On the 24th July, a woman died in Camden Town, having
taken the disease from her husband, who came home ill with Cholera a few days
previously from the Isle of Dogs, where he had been employed as an engineer ;
he survived his wife one week. On the 25th and 26th July, a brickmaker and
his son died at a small house in a newly built street (Piercefield Street) in the
upper part of Kentish Town; they were both engaged at work in brickmaking at
Belsize Park, and there was no other case of the disease at that time in the neighbourhood.
Two other children died of the disease on the 1st and 4th August in the
same house. No other case occurred in the street. It very much puzzled me
to account for these cases. I could not find out that any of the patients had
been in communication with infected districts. There was nothing in the
locality, especially to invite the disease, except that the house was newly built,
and was very damp, and with nothing to prevent the rising of moisture from the
heavy clay soil into the porous and indifferent bricks of which it was built; it
must, however, be admitted, that the house was not worse than many of those
around it, in which no case of Cholera occurred.
Another supposition occurred to my mind, that this man and boy working in
the fields where there are open sewers, may have introduced into their stomach,
either from their hands at their meals, or by drinking water, some sewage
matter.