View report page

14
returns of the Registrar General. To some of these diseases no
deaths were assigned last year, as may be seen by reference to
Table 3 in the Appendix. Others require simple enumeration, viz.,
Croup 20, Want of Breast Milk 3, and Thrush (in infants) 5.
Syphilis was returned in 11 cases, 9 of them being under one year
of age. The number, probably, is understated, some of the
infantile mortality registered under the heads of Atrophy, Premature
Birth, &c., being due to this cause. Twenty-four deaths
were caused by Erysipelas and Pyœmia. The latter disease does
not figure in the Registrar-General's tables. It is a very important
disease, and one of the most intractable. At least 10 cases
which do not appear to have been connected with childbed, were
fatal during the year.
PUERPERAL MORTALITY.
To all Puerperal or Childbed Diseases and Accidents 29 deaths
were traced. I say traced, because sometimes the previous occurrence
of parturition is not mentioned in the certificate of the cause
of death in these cases. I may add, that my attention having been
directed to the prevalence of Puerperal fever especially towards
the latter part of the year, I made a special inquiry with the
result of discovering several deaths undoubtedly due to this cause,
but which had been registered under the vague description of
"peritonitis" or "pyœmia," diseases which may and do exist
quite independent of the puerperal state. The total number of
fatal cases during the year was 23. Of these 14 occurred during
the latter half of the year in the Notting Hill District,—all in
private practices, for the Poor Law practice appears to have been
singularly free from this trouble. In three cases infection as the
origin of the disease was suggested by their occurrence within a
limited period of preceding cases in the same practices. The first
pair of cases was attended by a qualified practitioner, the other
two pairs by an unregistered practitioner, and a midwife
respectively. The midwife's cases and others of the deaths, I
may add, were certified by Medical men, who informed me that
they had been called in to see the patients in articulo mortis and
were unable to account for the disease. One gentleman, indeed,
stated that Erysipelas had been prevalent in his neighbourhood,
and that diseases in general had shown a tendency to assume a
typhoid form. He added that a former outbreak of Puerperal
disease had been synchronous with an epidemic of Scarlet fever.
ZYMOTIC DISEASES.
The total deaths from all diseases of the "zymotic class," including,
according; to the Registrar General's classification, the sub-orders
Miasmatic, Enthetic, Dietio, and Parasitic, were 402; 269 having