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As can readily be seen from the above figures, considerably more than half of
the deaths from infectious diseases were of children under five years of age, and taking
the total mortality of children under this age from all causes over 42 per cent. of
the deaths resulted from infectious diseases. In infants under one year old. diarrhoea,
and in children aged between one and five years, whooping cough, measles and tuberculosis
were the chief causes of the mortality from infectious diseases. The deaths from
infectious diseases were fewest during the age periods between 5 and 25 years. They
become more numerous during the periods 25 to 45 years, after which there is a
marked decrease. The percentages of the deaths from infectious diseases with respect
to deaths from all causes during these age periods, however, averaged about
the same as for the deaths of children under the age of five years. After the 35 to
45 age period the percentage rapidly declines. The chief cause of the mortality from
infectious disease between the ages of 20 and 65 was consumption.
Deaths from small-pox, measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria, including membranous
croup, whooping cough, enteric fever, and diarrhoea are grouped as the deaths from
the principal zymotic diseases, and the death-rate due to them is termed the zymotic
death-rate. The deaths from these diseases during 1905 numbered 344, and the zymotic
death-rate was 2.8 per 1,000 inhabitants as compared with 3.2 in 1904, 2.8 in 1903,
3.6 in 1902, 2.9 in 1901, 3.1 in 1900, 3.6 in 1899, 4.1 in 1898, 4.2 in 1897, 4.3 in
1896, 3.8 in 1895, 2.8 in 1894, and 4.7 in 1893. On the whole, the foregoing
figures show that there is a tendency to a decline in the zymotic death-rate of the
Borough. A comparison of the zymotic death-rates of London and Shoreditch and the
eight wards of the Borough is contained in Table VII. (Appendix). Amongst the wards
the zymotic death-rate varied very considerably, being as low as 1.0 and 1.2 in Moorfields
and Kingsland respectively, and as high as 4.3 in Hoxton.