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characterized St. Giles, prevailed in all three sub-districts, but in St. Giles, South,
presented even more excess than was exhibited by other diseases in that region of
large mortality.
Fevers, both scarlet and continued, on the other hand, find their maximum
in the northern division of St. Giles; in the other sub-districts the deaths from these
causes are even fewer than for an equal population elsewhere in London.
It is evidently very desirable to know more exactly the localities affected by
this class of diseases.
We have seen that the rates of mortality from all causes—184 in Bloomsbury,
364 in South St, Giles, and 288 in North St. Giles, per 10,000) residents—represent
as far as the most careful investigation can ensure, the relative fatality of 1857, in the
three sub-districts. Still it is evident that these figures are themselves the results
of averages which demand to be separated into their components. Bloomsbury, for
example, contains a group of poorer streets whose mortality may be different from
the rest. South St. Giles still presents, after every allowance that can be made, a
number of deaths that belong to the workhouse, and which impress on the mortality
peculiar features which should not be allowed to affect the whole of the sub-district;
and the northern part of St. Giles, being of the very compound character before considered,
especially requires to be divided into more natural and smaller sub-divisions,
For these reasons, I shall henceforth pursue my enquiries into the distribution
of disease, according to the ten localities which I have sketched out at the end of the
general portion of this report.*
Figures and facts in detail will be found in the appended Table VIII. In
examining this, and in deducing from it the arrangement of the ten sub-divisions in
the preponderance of their mortality, regard must be had to four chief points:—The
actual size of the locality under discussion ; the probable density of its population;
the actual number of deaths in the locality; and the proportion which the deaths from
the disease under consideration hold to the total mortality of the sub-division. Districts
near together, or whose claims to priory are balanced, are bracketed together. The
workhouse, with the 110 deaths assigned to its inmates, has been uniformly excluded
in the examination.
The order of the ten localities, in the degree of their mortality from all causes,
in 1857, is as follows :—
1. Russell Square locality, 42 acres, excluding open spaces, 63 deaths.
2. Bedford Square „ 25 „ „ 67 „
3. Lincoln's Inn Fields „ 13 „ „ 55 „
4. Great Coram Street „ 28 „ „ 127 „
5. Bloomsbury Square „ 27 „ „ 128 „
6. Southern Drury Lane „ 14 „ „ 122 „
The great advantage of considering these smaller localities is in a measure counterbalanced
by our ignorance of their population, so that we cannot establish a death-rate for
each. Still a rough estimate can be made by one conversant with the localities, of the density
of the inhabitants in each; and this with other considerations that serve as a check against
error, allows us with considerable certainty to assign to each locality its place among the
others, alhough we may not be able to give a fractional estimate of its death-rate.