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deaths in 1878-87, corrected for increase of population, from
which we learn that there was a marked diminution in the
number of deaths from small-pox (857), measles (94), scarlet
fever (742), whooping cough (327), "fever" (351), and
diarrhœal diseases (1.249).
There was a diminution in deaths, among other causes,
from phthisis and tubercular diseases (2,433), diseases of nervous
system (821), diseases of respiratory system, including croup
(2,554), and "all other causes" (2,182); the total diminution
being 11,931. On the other hand, there was an excess under
several heads—viz., diphtheria (459), cancer (181), premature
birth (85), diseases of circulatory system (478), diseases of
urinary system (143), and suicide (10). The excess (1,346)
being deducted from the diminution, a balance of diminution
and excess shows a net diminution of 10,585. In other words,
" there was a net gain in the year of 10,585 lives : that is to
say, had the death rate been equal to the mean rate in the ten
preceding years, 10,585 more persons would have died in
London in the year 1888 than was actually the case." This saving
of life was shared very unequally by the different causes, and
there were six from which, as we have seen, the mortality was
in excess. The increased mortality from these diseases, moreover,
has been continuous for some years, not in London only
but throughout the country generally. Similarly with regard to
the diseases which show diminished mortalities: here, also, most
of the changes are not peculiar to the year 1888, but are parts
of a change that has been going on for a considerable time; for,
in regard to the fifteen causes above named, "there are ten under
which there was also a diminution in each of the five precedingyears—viz.,
scarlet fever, typhus, simple and ill-defined fever,
enteric fever, diseases of the nervous system, diseases of the
respiratory system, accident, murder, and the aggregate of other
causes." "This persistency of decrease," it is added, "affords
good grounds for believing that the diminution under, at
any rate, some of these headings will be permanently
maintained."
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