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58
Lung diseases, excluding consumption from that term, were fatal to the population
of the several sub-divisions of St. Giles, in the following order :—
1. Russell Square locality, 42 acres, 10 deaths, 14-3 p.c. total mortality.
2, 3.
Bloomsbury Square „ 27 „ 17 „ 13.3 „
Lincoln's Inn Fields „ 13 , 8 „ 14.5 „
4, 5.
Bedford Square „ 25 „ 15 „ 22.4 „
Coram Street „ 28 „ 25 „ 19.7 „
6, 7.
Short's Gardens „ 14J „ 31 „ 13.5 „
. Southern Drury Lane „ 14 „ 25 „ 20.5 „
Northern Drury Lane „ 14 „ 40 „ 19.6 „
9, 10.
(Church Lane „ 12 „ 36 „ 32.2 „
{ Dudley Street „ 13 „ 59 „ 20.1 „
This order is not found to hold good equally for lung diseases, acute and
chronic; in the acute lung diseases, the locality of Dudley Street would easily distance
all the rest; while Church Lane district appears also at the end of the foregoing list, by
virtue of its excess in chronic lung disease. Without here presenting a separate
analysis of the acute and chronic kinds, it may be stated generally that the former
were most fatal to those places which contributed prominently to the mortality from
zymotic disease, while chronic maladies of the lungs have affected the ten localities
almost in the order in which they were attacked by consumption. This last circumstance
would of course be anticipated, and it is capable of the same partial explanation
that has been given for consumption.
It would be obviously improper to lay much stress on the exact position held
by the ten localities in regard of the characteristic diseases of the district, seeing that
the facts relate only to a single year; but I think there can be no question of the importance
of the general result obtained; and it will be a matter of increasing interest to
watch how the several localities arrange themselves in the same respects, from one year
to another.
But I must call attention to the very strong corroboration which is afforded to
the views previously expressed on the causation of the diseases of St. Giles, by this
examination of the localities where they were most fatal in the year 1857.
In occupying the centre of a town, in climate and soil, in sewerage and in
water supply, there is really but little difference in favor of those localities which are
so much healthier than the others, but the comparison is strongly in their favour on
the questions of poverty, dirtiness, and crowding of houses. This condition of overcrowding,
as it is the effect of poverty, and a most important cause of dirtiness, might
of itself be considered as the exponent of the other two conditions; yet it is not only
through privation and filthiness that over-crowding produces its baneful effects. Physically
and morally, by its direct operation on the body, and its indirect action on the
homes and habits of the poor, I fully believe in the adequacy of over-crowding to produce
the very results which are observed in the mortality of St. Giles.
We may observe in the first place how surrounding districts stand with St.
Giles, in respect of this source of disease. It must be remembered that a high average
number of people inhabiting the houses of a district, though not enough to be