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27
Respiratory Diseases.
The number of deaths due to bronchitis, pneumonia and other diseases of the
organs of respiration, was higher by 56 than in 1911, viz., 394 against 338. The
death rate was 3'07 as compared with 3.04.
In 1911 there was an increase of 68 over 1910, the figure for the latter year
being 270.
Probably the cold wet weather experienced in 1912 to a large extent accounted
for the increase in the numbers, and it is to be noted that of the total, 230 were due
to bronchitis, to which disease the deaths of no fewer than 152 persons over 65 years
of age were ascribed.
The number of deaths from pneumonia was 131, 46 occurring amongst children
less than two years of age.
Cancer or Malignant Disease.
The number of deaths due to cancer, 137, is somewhat smaller than for some
years past.
In 1910, there were 156, in 1911, 161. The death rates were 1.2 and 1.4 per
1,000; that for 1912, was IT.
To these slight variations little or no importance is to be attached. The number
of deaths year after year is always somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150, and the
death rate as indicated between 1 and 1.5 per 1,000.
In the year 1911, according to the Medical Officer of Health for London, the
death rate per 1,000 for London as a whole was 1 "05. In that year the rate for
St. Marylebone was 1.4.
In a table in his annual report the County Medical Officer of Health shows the
death rates in each of the Boroughs corrected for the purposes of comparison with
these figures. He has also worked out a round figure for comparison for each
Borough, which can be placed alongside the figures for other Boroughs and for
London as a whole.
These figures are known as "comparative mortality figures," and they represent
the corrected death rate in each Borough compared with the death rate in London as
a whole, which for convenience is taken as 1,000. The figure produced for
Marylebone is 1,157. This is higher than any of the other Boroughs, except Fulham,
the figure for which was 1,205. It was 10 above the next below it, St. Pancras and
Chelsea, over and 500 above the City of London.
From a table in this same report, showing the corrected death rates from cancer
in each of the Sanitary districts, in each of the years 1901 to 1911, that for the
Borough, it apppears, though it has varied up and down slightly, has always been high.
Reaching as low as .92 in 1901, it has never previously been so high as 1'21, the
figure obtained in 1911.