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NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT
of the
MEDICAL OFFICER OE HEALTH,
Being for the year 1874,
To the Vestry of the Parish ef St. Mary Abbott's, Kensington.
Gentlemen,
I propose in this, the Nineteenth Annual Report of the
Medical Officer of Health, to follow the plan adopted in my previous
reports : that is to say, the vital statistics will be made up
to the end of the registration year (January 2nd, 1875), for the
sake of comparison with the Registrar.General's figures for the
entire Metropolis : the Tables, showing the sanitary work carried
out by your very competent staff of inspectors, will be made up
to the end of the Vestry year (March 25th, 1875) ; while, with
respect to other matters calling for notice, I shall bring the report
down to the latest possible period, no useful purpose being served
by delay; it being, moreover, in every way the better plan to
refer to subjects while they are tolerably fresh in recollection, and
before they have lost their interest. I shall, as usual, preface my
report with some general remarks, which, I trust, will be found
worthy of perusal. And I may here mention that the first Six
Tables in the Appendix are given in the form settled last year by
the Society of Medical Officers of Health, with a view to ensure
uniformity in statistical returns. The subject was brought under
the notice of the Society by myself, and a great deal of thought
and labour devoted to it, in order to make the tables generally
acceptable. I now pass on to observe that the public
health in this Parish, as guaged by the gross mortality,
was not so good during the year 1874 as in the previous
year, the deaths registered (2,696) showing an increase of
260. The increase in the rate of mortality, however, was not
large in proportion, for as the population increased by 5,000, 91
deaths have to be deducted on that account, while 32 deaths are
accounted for by an increase in the number of deaths of non.
parishioners registered at the Brompton Hospital for Consumption
and the Diseases of the Chest. The real excess of mortality, therefore,
was 137, and of these deaths 98 belong to the group of
zymotic diseases, and were due to a severe and prolonged epidemic
of measles, leaving 39 deaths to be spread over the remainder
of Table 3 (Appendix) ; but as a matter of fact the
higher rate of mortality from chest diseases,, which will be referred
to hereafter, more than accounts for this number. If we
assume that the deaths of Kensington parishioners outside the
parish were as numerous as the deaths of non.parishioners at the
Brompton Hospital, which is situated within the parish, the rate
of mortality during the year would be 19.5 per 1,000 persons
living—a rate that compares not unfavourably with the rate for