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17
I am indebted to the British Medical Journal for the following
extract. It will probably be noticed that the B.M.J. mortality
rates differ in some few instances from those given in the body of
my own report. This apparent discrepancy is due to the fact that
the cause of death is often assigned in medical certificates to more
than one disease. Some of the diphtheria deaths, for instance, might
be quite correctly classified as scarlet fever, or as measles, or as
whooping-cough, according as one or other of these diseases preceded
or accompanied the throat affection which ultimately proved fatal.
It would conduce to uniformity if the Registrar-General would
publish some instructions as to classification, so that all Medical
Officers of Health could formulate their statistics on one plan.
THE DEATH RATES OF LONDON SANITARY AREAS
DURING 1898.
" In the accompanying table will be found summarised the vital
statistics of the forty-three sanitary areas of the Metropolis,
based upon the Registrar-General's returns for the year 1898.
The mortality figures relate to persons actually belonging to
the various sanitary areas, and are the result of a complete
system of distribution of deaths occurring in the public
institutions of London among the various sanitary areas in
which the patients had previously resided.
The 132,432 births registered in London during 1898 were equal
to a race of 29.5 per 1,000 of the population, estimated at
4,504,766 persons in the middle of that year ; this rate was
lower than in any of the ten preceding years, during which
the birth rate averaged 30.9 per 1,000. In the various
sanitary areas the birth rates showed, as usual, wide variations,
owing principally to the differences in the sex and age
distribution of their populations. In Kensington, St. George
Hanover Square, Westminster, St. James Westminster,
St. Martin-in-the-Fields, and London City, the birth rates
were considerably below the average ; while they showed a
marked excess in St. Luke, Bethnal Green, Whitechapel,
St. George-in-the-East, Mile End Old Town, St. George
Southwark, and Bermondsey sanitary areas.