London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

View report page

Kensington 1889

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

This page requires JavaScript

86
including 4 registered in the Brompton sub-district. Tabes
Mesenterica, popularly known as "consumption of the bowels,"
was the cause of 25 deaths, including 4 in Brompton, all of
them under five years of age, and 18 under one year. Tubercular
Meningitis and Hydrocephalus (water on the brain) were
the causes of 33 deaths, 12 of them in Brompton, and 26 under
five years of age. Phthisis, popularly known as "decline" or
" consumption," was the cause of 224 deaths ; 3 under five
years of age, 3 between five and fifteen years, and 210 between
fifteen and sixty-five; viz., 25, 53, 65, 48 and 19 in the five
decades consecutively: 8 deaths were registered at ages over
sixty-five. The quarterly numbers were 57, 55, 58 and 54.
Of the total, 181 belong to the Town sub-district and 43 to
Brompton. The deaths from tubercular diseases were, as usual,
disproportionately more numerous in the Town sub-district than
in Brompton, a fifth of tbem only having occurred in Brompton,
which contains more than a fourth of the population; a fact
which may be explained, in part, by the relatively small proportion
of [children, and of the poorest classes, in this subdistrict.
It is probable that the deaths ascribed to tubercular
diseases do not comprise all the deaths originating in the
tubercular diathesis, and that many deaths of children classified
to Premature Birth, Atrophy, Debility, Convulsions, &c., were
primarily due to the scrofulous taint, In numerous instances
some other disease, e.g., of the lungs, as bronchitis, pneumonia,
&c., was associated with phthisis in medical certificates of the
cause of death; but all such associated diseases have been disregarded
in the preparation of Table III., for when phthisis was
returned, the death is classified to that heading, it being assumed
that the tubercular diathesis was underlying the other disease,
and was in fact the primary cause of death.
Class Y.—Developmental Diseases.
In this Class the total deaths were 178, viz., 129 in the
Town sub-district, and 49 in Brompton. Premature Birth was