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The percentage proportions of the several classes of Disease
were to the total deaths as follow :—of the Zymotic 27.8, of
the Tubercular 19.6, of the Brain 9, of the Heart 1.3, of the
Respiratory 18, of the Digestive 6.7, of the Violent class 4.4,
and of the remaining groups, including Dropsy, Diseases of
the Kidney, of Childbirth, the Joints, Skin, &c. 12.8. Tested
by the average mortality of the antecedent 10 years—adding
thereto 1/10 for the people's increase—the health of London,
Hackney, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and
Poplar ranked thus in the retrogressive scale :—London 1,
Whitechapel 2, Shoreditch 3, Bethnal Green 4, Hackney 5,
and Poplar 6. Expressed otherwise, the mortality was in
excess during 6 weeks in London, 14 in Whitechapel, 21 in
Shoreditch, 24 in Bethnal Green, 36 in Hackney, and 44 in
Poplar. The open spaces that existed, and have in the interim
been built over, must, of course, be taken into account
in the contrast of the Districts enumerated above. For the
year, the death-rate of Bethnal Green was 2.231 per cent.,
or 1 death out of every 44'82 living. This—though slightly
(.011) in excess of all London—is less by .204 per cent., or
20 in every 10,000 deaths, than the death-rate of the East
Districts, of which Bethnal Green is a constituent part
Comparing the decennial periods of 1837, 1847 and 1857,
our mortality has fallen from 1 death in 32 and 37 living to
1 in 45. On glancing over the Nosological Register, (Table
2,) you will see that the long catalogue of infantile diseases
with the Typhus and Consumption of adult life, constituted
the chief causes of the low average age at death. Thus, out
of 1264 deaths of children under the age of 5, Small Pox
cut off 5, Measles 80, Scarlatina 68, Hooping Cough 126,
Croup 28, Diarrhoea 116, Cholera 12, Fever 34, Tabes mesenterica,
or " Scrofulous degeneration of the mesenteric
glands " 133, Water on the Brain 44, Convulsions and other
brain affections 110, Respiratory diseases 216, Teething 69,
Debility from Birth and Atrophy 67, Violent deaths 49, and