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38
This total is considerably above the corrected decennial average (495),
but in the previous year the deaths from the same diseases (339) were far
below the average. The death-rate from these diseases was 3.7 per
1,000 living in the whole parish: 4.3 in the Town sub-district, and 1.8
in Brompton. The rate in all London was 41. The deaths in Kensington
were equal to 181 per 1,000 deaths, the proportion in all
London being 175. The proportion of deaths from the same diseases
to deaths from all causes in England and Wales in 1877 was 135—
an unusually low rate.*
Among other diseases of the Zymotic Class, Croup was the cause
of 17 deaths, 14 under five years of age—16 in the Town sub-district
and 1 in Brompton.
Erysipelas occasioned 8 deaths; 6 in the Town sub-district and 2 in
Brompton. Three of the deaths were of children under five years.
Puerperal Fever (Metria) was the registered cause of 6 deaths, all
in the Town sub-district; five of the deaths were of women between
25 and 35 years of age. It may be here mentioned that 14 deaths
were ascribed to Childbirth (all but 1 in the Town sub-district); 5 between
15 and 25 years; 5 and 4 respectively in the next two decades.
Thus 20 deaths, according to the registration returns, were due to the
diseases and accidents incident to parturition, or rather less than 0'5
per cent, on the live births—about half the usual rate of mortality from
these causes. Metria. it may be added, is a specific disease of a highly
contagious character, affecting women in the puerperal state.
Rheumatism was the cause of 10 deaths ( 2 of them in Brompton),
all but one of persons above 5 years of age. The more immediate cause
of death in these cases, usually, is disease of the heart. Sometimes
heart-complication proves fatal in the course of an attack of rheumatic
fever: more commonly, however, the secondary disease proves fatal at a
later period of life; and it is probable that a considerable percentage of
the deaths returned as due to heart disease might, be comprised under
the head of rheumatism, and would be, if the history of the illness could
be traced from the commencement.
Order 2. Enthetic Diseases.—The only fatal disease in this order
was Syphilis, which occasioned 17 deaths; 14 of them in the first year
of life, and 2 in the second. Only 1 death from this cause was registered
in the Brompton sub-district. The number of deaths ascribed to
Syphilis is greater than usual, though it would probably be found to be
* For some account of the mortality from the "seven principal diseases of the
zymotic class" vide page 8 et, seq.