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82
DEATHS AT PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS.
The "large public institutions" in Kensington, are the Parish
Infirmary and Workhouse in the Town sub-district, and the Hospital
for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest at Brompton. There
are numerous minor public or quasi-public institutions, but, with
one exception, they do not furnish occasion for notice here. The
exception is St. Joseph's House, Portobello Road, Notting Hill—
a Roman Catholic institution, containing some 250 aged poor
persons of both sexes, brought from all parts. The Marylebone
Infirmary, at Notting Hill, for the sick poor chargeable to the rates
of that parish, now completed, will be opened this month (June),
and will henceforth appear among our large public institutions. The
deaths registered at the Workhouse, the Brompton Hospital, and
the Hospitals of the Metropolitan Asylum District, were 369, or
12.8 per cent. on total deaths, the percentage proportion of deaths
in public institutions in the Metropolis generally being 18'0.
The Parish Infirmary and Workhouse.—I am indebted to
Dr. Whitmore, late Medical Superintendent of the Infirmary and
Medical Officer of the Workhouse, for the statistics of the
mortality at these institutions. The deaths were 236, males 115
and females 121. The numbers in the four quarters respectively
were 75: 57: 55 and 49:—124 in the cold and 112 in the warm
half of the year. The ages at death were as follows:—Under 1
year, 33; between 1 and 60,115; at 60 and upwards, 88. Between
60 and 70 the deaths were 46; between 70 and 80, 34; at 80 and
upwards, 8. The greatest age at death was 88; bronchitis proving
fatal to a female in the first quarter, and brain disease to a male
in the fourth quarter, at that age. Five inquests were held, viz.,
on a male, age 66, verdict, "sudden, syncope, want of food;" on
a male, age 28, verdict, "sudden, disease of heart, want of food";
on a male, age 76, and a female, age 62, verdict, "sudden, disease
of lungs"; and on a female, aged 10 weeks, verdict, "found dead
in bed, convulsions." During the year erysipelas of a severe type,
and generally idiopathic, was prevalent, and was the cause of a
considerable number of deaths.