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withstanding that the weather was mild ; the mean temperature
being no less than 7. 1° Fahr. above the average for that month ;
but a considerable proportion of the total excess occurred in
December, when the deaths were 44 per cent. above the
corrected decennial average—a result due in large measure
to inclement weather, the temperature then being 9.3° below
the December average; the cold, moreover, being accompanied
with a succession of dense fogs. But in this month also,
pneumonia increased, as compared with bronchitis, in more than
the usual winter or cold-season proportion—pointing to some unhealthy
influence at work. The diseases of the circulatory
system shew a like fatality, the deaths (7546) having been 1294
above the corrected annual average—those occurring in January
being 55 per cent. above the usual monthly average. The deaths
from phthisis, moreover, shot up in the first week of January and
continued in excess for ten weeks in succession. The RegistrarGeneral,
to whose Annual Summary I am indebted for the above
figures, closes his remarks on the epidemic by observing that " it
would probably be not far from the truth if the whole increase in
mortality from all causes in the aggregate during the mild month
of January were attributed to influenza; in which case that
disease would have to be credited with having caused 2258 deaths
in London in the first four weeks of the year alone," though the
deaths directly ascribed to the epidemic only numbered 303 in
January.
The deaths in Kensington ascribed to Influenza, alone or
associated with other diseases, mostly of the respiratory organs,
were 39, viz., 29 and 10 in the Town and Brompton sub-districts
respectively. The deaths at ages were as follows:—under five
years 4, between five and twenty-five 2, and 7, 2, 7, 8, 6 and 3 in
the six decades between 25 and 85. Twenty-six of the deaths
took place in the first eight weeks of the year, thirteen in each
period of four weeks, and three and seven in the two following
four-weekly periods. Many of the deceased persons occupied a
good position in life. In January there was, in addition to the