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20 MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
thought it desirable to distribute them according to
the municipal divisions of the City. Strongly believing,
what I have endeavoured to express, that this
class of deaths is for the main part preventable, I
have thought it would interest the honourable representatives
of the several wards, and would more
directly enlist their sympathies for sanitary progress,
if I could enable them at a glance to recognize
the ratio in which their respective constituencies
contribute to this annual death-roll. I have included
in the table, under eight different heads, all those
acute diseases which depend in an important degree
on local causation, either for their existence or for
their fatality. It will be obvious, even to the unprofessional
reader, that local causes are not of equal
prevalence in respect of all the diseases there tabulated.
Some (as fever and cholera) would not be
known at all under perfect sanitary arrangements;
others (as scarlatina, measles, and hooping-cough)
would be far less malignant in their attacks ; others
(as those classified in the tenth and twelfth columns)
would no doubt exist under the most perfect physical
circumstances, but would probably prevail in
numbers quite inconsiderable as compared with
those actually observed.
On consulting the table*, it will be observed that
in Cordwainers Ward, during the last year, not a
single death occurred from the causes referred to,
and in the preceding year of epidemic visitation
* Appendix No. V.