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30
In Dulvich the births were 68 and the deaths 31;
in Camberwell the births 924 and deaths 744, but of
the latter 85 occurred in two Lunatic Asylums and 137
in the Workhouse; in Peckham, the births were 1494
and the deaths 842; and in St. George's, the births
1309 and the deaths 669.
Deaths among young children were unusually numerous;
627 died in their first year, and 390 between
1 and 5—in all 1017, or nearly one-half of the total
number of deaths, before the fifth year of life. There
is not much difference in this respect between the three
most populous sub-districts of the parish, so that the
causes leading to this high mortality must have been
general; they were—first, premature birth and defective
vitality continuing from birth, which together
produced 147 deaths; second, acute pulmonary affections,
which killed 175; third, Diarrhoea which killed
at least 113; fourth, hydrocephalus and convulsions,
which killed 166; and lastly, tubercular and the
various Zymotic diseases. The above enumeration
gives doubtless with some degree of accuracy the immediate
causes of death, but it does not of itself show,
what the contrast afforded by the infantile mortality
in Dulwich indicates, and what I have on other occasions
endeavoured to prove, that deaths occur in excessive
proportion among the children of the poor, and