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7
The facts thus exhibited suggest several interesting considerations.
The population of all London is now estimated at about 2,500,000; the population
of Shoreditch as estimated in my preliminary report is about 125,000; the population
of Shoreditch is thus one twentieth part that of all London; the proportion of
sickness and mortality borne by Shoreditch should be therefore one twentieth that
of London. In Table III. I have given the deaths from all causes, and the deaths from
Epidemics occurring in Shoreditch week by week, side by side with those occurring in
all London. In column 9, it will be seen that in ten weeks out of thirteen, Shoreditch
contributed less than its due proportion of deaths; whilst during the whole quarter
it contributed one twenty-second part of the aggregate mortality of the metropolis.
On the other hand, to counter-balance this apparently favourable result, instead of
one twentieth only of the aggregate deaths from Epidemics, Shoreditch yielded one
sixteenth. It is therefore owing to the fact that Epidemics are more rife and more
destructive amongst us, that the mortality is so great.
The mortality from all causes in Shoreditch was 629, from Epidemics 158..
Instead of 158, Shoreditch should have lost 131 only. One-fourth or twenty-five
per cent. therefore of the total deaths were owing to epidemic or preventible disease,
a proportion considerably exceeding that of all London.
The deaths during the quarter have been at the rate of twenty per thousand per
annum, a number, of course, considerably below the average of the whole year, namely,
28. The geueral mildness of the spring quarter lessens the mortality from chest
affections, which contribute so enormously to the aggregate mortality. The diminution
of other fatal diseases, of course, raises the relative proportion of deaths by fever
to the whole, although the absolute number may not vary.
The columns devoted to meteorological phenomena do not demand any remarks
at present. Recorded side by side with the mortality, they will hereafter offer materials
for comparison, and perhaps lead to useful conclusions. It is difficult without very
large materials, and those very carefully sifted and classified, to draw demonstrable
conclusions as to the causes of sickness from the comparison between the meteorological
phenomena of a given date and the contemporaneous mortality. Few diseases kill very
suddenly; before a man expires from fever he has commonly struggled for one or more
weeks; by looking at the mortality alone we thus constantly run the risk of assigning
to the atmospheric conditions of one week the causation of diseases which began in
previous weeks. It was this consideration which led me to urge the importance of