View report page

56
The epidemic continued, with constantly diminishing
severity, for several more weeks, but the death-rate in the
second four-weekly period of the year underwent a great decline:
it was only 20.6, or 2.2 above the average, in Kensington;
and 24 6, or 2.1 above the average, in London as a whole.
In these weeks the deaths in London from influenza were
637 (viz. 314, 183, 79, and 61 in the successive weeks), and in
Kensington 34, including five in Brompton. The deaths from
diseases of the respiratory system fell from 4,989 to 2,571, in
London, and were only 240 above the average. They were
324 in excess in the first fortnight, and 84 below the average
in the latter half of the period. In Kensington the deaths
from these causes, which in the preceding four weeks had
been 198, fell to 77. The anticipation I had expressed in my
first monthly report that we had "seen the worst of the
epidemic," and might "look forward hopefully to an immediate
and progressive decline in the rate of mortality," was thus
realized. In the third four-weekly period (February 28th to March
26th), the deaths from Influenza were 119 only in London, and
9 in Kensington: the general death-rate, moreover, was slightly
below the average, as it was again in the following four weeks,
ended April 23rd, in which only 42 and 3 deaths were registered
in London and Kensington respectively, from Influenza.
It is noteworthy that the deaths in London from diseases
of the respiratory system, which had been 2,143 in excess of
the decennial average in 1890, the first year of the epidemic,
and 4,103 in excess in 1891, were only 392 in excess in 1892,
a remarkable fact seeing that the deaths from these causes in
the first four weeks of the year alone, were 2,571 above the
corrected average. The early weeks of the current year have
witnessed a slight recrudescence of Influenza, but I venture to
express the hope that the present generation will see no more
of the disease in its severely epidemic form.
The following Table showing the relative prevalence, at
different periods of the year, in Kensington and in London, of
certain diseases of the zymotic class, has been compiled
from my thirteen four-weekly reports.