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7
MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
rious and dis-interested sources, I hear grateful men
tion of improvements which you have operated.
In confirmation of this assurance, I may inform
your Honourable Court that, in collecting my mateterials
for the present statement, I solicited from the
Union-Surgeons of the whole City of London certain
particulars of information which they were peculiarly
able to furnish: I enquired of them, namely,
whether, during the past year, there had prevailed
among the poorer classes in their several districts,
more or less than the ordinary pressure of epidemic,
endemic, and infectious disease; and whether, in
case of such difference having been observed, they
could refer it, either for better or worse, to any
changes recently wrought in the physical conditions
of their respective neighbourhoods. They have had
the kindness to furnish me with the information requested
of them, and I append to my Report the
substance of their replies, arranged in a tabular
form*. These documents testify with remarkable
uniformity, both to the abatement of disease within
their several provinces of practice, and to the considerable
dependence of that improved condition
of health on sanitary works effected under your
auspices.
In order to form a correct estimate of the average
mortality in any district, it is indispensable that
one's records should extend over many years. Thus
* Appendix No. I.
B 2