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thirty-five, and deducting from that number nine deaths from other
causes than disease, namely, two from suicide and seven from accident,
there remains a mortality of twenty-six only, the smallest
that I have yet reported, and, I believe, the smallest monthly mortality
for some years past. For eight days, from the 20th to the
28th October, no death was registered in Rotherhithe, a fact unprecedented
amongst us since the Registration Act has come into
operation. Now, Gentlemen, the death rate on this occasion has
been an exact representative of the state of the health of the
parish; the cases of illness during the elapsed month having
been few and not severe, and the only epidemic prevalent has been
scarlatina, from which four deaths have occurred. To conclude,
during the three autumnal months (August, September and October),
at a time when we expect a little more disease than at other
periods of the year, Rotherhithe has heen healthy, and, during
October, one of the healthiest districts of the metropolis.
Certain it is, from the concurrent testimony of all the medical
practitioners that the illnesses of the inhabitants have become of
late less violent and less numerous than formerly. To what are we
to attribute this improved state of things? Undoubtedly there are
fluctuations in disease; elevations and depressions, as in all other
natural phenomena, increase and decrease from circumstances,
such as meteorological, atmospheric and other influences, over
which mankind have no control; but there are other things over
which man has control, and which exercise a most beneficial or
deleterious influence upon health. Fever, as I have once before
stated, has disappeared from certain localities in Rotherhithe
since the ditches have been covered over. Cholera left almost untouched
in 1854 places that it had fiercely ravaged in 1849, when
they had neither drainage, sewage, nor water supply; and may
not, at the present time, the improved state of the healthiness of
Rotherhithe be, in some small degree, attributable to the excellent
sanitary measures which have of late been so extensively adopted
and enforced?
Yours respectfully,
November, 1856. W. MURDOCH.
ELEVENTH REPORT.
To the Vestry of the Parish of Saint Mary, Rotherhithe.
Gentlemen,
Several Members of this Vestry having brought under my notice
a piece of land, situated opposite the China Hall, on the west side of
the Deptford Lower Road and adjacent to it, I went there with
the Inspector of Nuisances on the 15th November, 1856.
This land is open to the road, and much used by carmen,
waggoners and others, who frequent the China Hall. There being