Hints from the Health Department. Leaflet from the archive of the Society of Medical Officers of Health. Credit: Wellcome Collection, London
[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Battersea]
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Ages at Under one year of age, 308 deaths were registered,
Death. being 35 per cent. of the deaths of all ages. From one
to five years, 165 deaths occurred, equal to 18 per cent. of such
deaths. Under five years, all the above-mentioned deaths
combined numbered 473, being 53 per cent. of the total deaths.
This, high as it is, is a very distinct improvement upon the
infantile mortality of past years; indeed, it may be said, that
the greatest saving in human life recently effected has been at
the infantile period, a result at which sanitarians have always
aimed. Still, the waste of life at these ages is far too great.
Thus, out of 140 deaths from zymotic disease during the year,
118 were in children under five years of age. The numbers
dying under one year are duly augmented by the inclusion of
107 deaths from Premature Birth, Low Vitality, or Congenital
Mal-formation, most of which are wholly unavoidable, and of
whom a majority, previous to the strengthening of the law on
the subject some few years since, would have been buried as
stillborn. The number of deaths under one year per thousand
births was 127, comparing favorably with the preceding year,
when it was 146 per thousand births.
From old age twenty persons died, nine being over 80 years.
In the case of many other very aged persons, death was
ascribed to other causes, one hundred and thirty-three persons
dying between sixty and eighty years of age, and sixteen over
eighty years.
TABLE IV.
Zymotic Mortality in the East Battersea Sub-District.
1879 | 1880 | 1881 | 1882 | 1883 | 1884 | 1885 | 1886 | 1887 | 1888 | 1889 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Small Pox | 1 | 1 | 17 | ... | ... | 3 | 1 | ... | ... | ... | ... |
Measles | 47 | 22 | 60 | 33 | 25 | 92 | 49 | 44 | 33 | 45 | 48 |
Scarlet Fever | 44 | 63 | 20 | 36 | 17 | 17 | 3 | 9 | 18 | 13 | 9 |
Diphtheria | 6 | 2 | 3 | 7 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 6 | 8 | 8 | 11 |
Enteric, &c. Fevers | 13 | 15 | 17 | 14 | 14 | 25 | 9 | 10 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
Whooping Cough | 39 | 43 | 37 | 56 | 53 | 60 | 47 | 62 | 58 | 58 | 21 |
Epidemic Diarrhœa | 43 | 78 | 45 | 37 | 51 | 96 | 63 | 82 | 99 | 36 | 38 |
Other Zymotic Diseases | 25 | 13 | 18 | 11 | 19 | 20 | 9 | 19 | 27 | ... | 9 |
Total Deaths from Zymotic Diseases | 218 | 237 | 217 | 194 | 185 | 317 | 198 | 232 | 246 | 183 | 140 |
Zymotic Death-rate | 3.9 | 4.3 | 3.7 | 3.2 | 3.0 | 4.9 | 2.8 | 3.3 | 3.3 | 2.2 | 1.7 |
Death-rate from all Diseases | 17.5 | 18.9 | 16.8 | 16.4 | 16.5 | 18.5 | 16.0 | 16.2 | 14.0 | 13.0 | 11.2 |