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49
is 22 per 10,000 below the average rate of the ten preceding years. Whether this
be explained by there having been two visitations of cholera in those ten years, or by
the town making a steady progress towards a better standard of health, it is here
immaterial to enquire.
All the divisions of the town have contributed to this improvement. In the
central group of districts the deaths fell from 243 to 229 per 10,000 inhabitants; but
in the southern districts the improvement has been most marked; in the preceding
ten years they have presented the very highest death-rate of the town, 262 deaths
per 10,000, but in 1367 they have advanced in health even above the average of the
Metropolis, 21C only of the same number of residents having died within the year.
Among all this improvement, what progress has St. Giles made ? In the ten
years preceding 1S57, its average mortality has been 268 for every 10,000 persons ;
that is, St. Giles was considerably worse than the central districts, with which it is
grouped, and worse than the southern districts, with their great natural disadvantages.
The annual mortality of the central districts having improved by 14, and of the
southern by 46 per 10,000,* three per 10,000 represents the progress of St. Giles.
Without any special epidemic to raise the mortality of 1857, the district was no
better than in former years.
Having arrived at this point, that we know how we stand as to the total
mortality, let us next inquire what are the special diseases which make up this
excess in the mortality of St. Giles, above other districts.
Chapter II.—The Diseases which produced the Mortality of St. Giles, in 1857.
These have been examined for each sex, and for all ages ; but for the sake of
brevity the sexes are put together, and the ages are grouped into twelve periods, in
Table III, which is printed in the appendix.
The registered deaths 1461 are here referred to their causes, and to the
period of lift; at which they occurred. The deaths of St. Giles patients occuring in the
Hospitals are not comprised here, as the disease has not uniformly ascertained in
these cases.
Of much value as the abstract figures in this table are, it is even more important
to know what are those diseases which produce a mortality in St. Giles out
of proportion to the rest of London, as these maladies will evidently demand a
more particular examination.
With this object I have constructed another Table, f which gives the mortality
from each of seventeen classes of disease in the metropolis as well as in St. Giles.
Then as the population of St. Giles in 1857 was one 49th part of that of the whole
town, the number of deaths in the metropolis from each class of disease, divided by
49, will give the quota of that class for the St. Giles population.
* This advance in the sanitary condition of the southern districts, is believed to be
mainly referable to the improvement in the quality of the water supplied to their houses.
t The same investigation for each Quarter of the Year, is given in the appendix Table IV.