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17
SUMMARY OF MORTAL STATISTICS, ETC.,
KENSINGTON, 1891.
The year 1891 does not show to advantage in comparison
with lately preceding years. The deaths were
considerably in excess of the corrected decennial average, and
the death-rate, 18.4 per 1000, was 1.8 above the average (16.6),
and higher than in any year since 1880. This was due to the
Epidemic of Influenza, and to the excessive mortality from
diseases of the respiratory organs attributable in large
measure to that epidemic. In three only of my thirteen fourweekly
reports was I enabled to chronicle a death-rate below
the decennial average, the rate having been in excess of the
average in the remaining eleven periods. The lowest rate
(11.7 per 1000) was recorded in the four weeks ended October
10th; the highest (24.8) in the four weeks ended January:51st;
the next highest (24.4) in the last four weeks of the year.
Happily there is little cause of complaint with respect to the
principal diseases of the zymotic class. The deaths from
these causes were 273 only, being 77 below the corrected
decennial average. The deaths from measles, scarlet fever,
and diphtheria were below the average; those from whoopingcough
and diarrhœa differed little from the average; enteric
fever deaths were slightly in excess : there was no death
from small-pox. Typhus fever has not appeared among the
causes of death in Kensington since the year 1883. The mean
temperature of the air (484° Fahrenheit) was 0.8 below the
averages of the fifty preceding years.
The death-rate in the first four weeks of the year,
ended January 31st, the highest in 1891, was 24.8 per 1000 of
the population, as subsequently enumerated in April: it was
41 above the decennial average (20.7), but 3.3 below the
Metropolitan rate (281), this being 4 0 above the decennial
average (24.1). The deaths from the principal diseases of
c