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15
ditions which favour the production of epidemic diseases were not wanting in the
Coram-street locality, and I have reason to know that our b?st neighbourhood, about
Russell-square, is by no means free from similar defects. In three others of the ten localities,
there is a slight fall in the zymotic mortality. In the remaining five, a great and
unmistakeable decrease has been experienced in spite of the prevalence of epidemic
disease which signalized the year. Around Lincoln's Inn Fields, the zymotic deaths
—represented in 1857 by the proportionate number 56 — have sunk, in 1858, to 32.
In the southern parts of the district, about Drury Lane, the number 77 falls to 41; in
the northern locality of Drury Lane, the deaths sink from one year to the other in the
proportion of 89 to 55; while, in the two localities which were most affected by
zymotic disease in 1857, and which continued to be singularly bad in this respect,
namely, around Short's Gardens and Dudley Street,* the figures 98 and 99, of the
earlier year, are replaced by 53 and 56 in the year following. In 1858, the worst
locality for disorders of this class, was that enclosed between Oxford Street, High
Street, Broad Street, and Holborn. The lowest position was attained by this locality,
however, not by an actual increase in the numbers of these diseases, but only because
zymotic diseases did not here experience the same fall as in the surrounding portions of
St. Giles's. This resulted from the local prevalence of scarlatina, before mentioned.
This examination of the distribution of zymotic disease through our district, in
1857 and in 1858, has shown that these spots have made most progress towards a
better standard, which had been subjected to the most vigorous measures for the
removal of their known insalubrious conditions. So undeniably are zymotic diseases
dependent on such conditions, that the fact here established appears to me to complete
our title to claim some of the improvement in the public health of our district as the
result of our own endeavours. And we may venture to hope for a considerable
reduction of the present rate of mortality in those localities, such as around Coram
Street, which have more recently come under supervision, as well as a further amelioration
in those which, like the neighbourhood of Dudley Street, and Drury Lane,
have been steadily under inspection from the outset.
Consumptive diseases : It has already been stated that these maladies exhibited
no decline in our district since 1857. The localization of fatal cases, however, was
remarkably different in this year and in 1858, as will be seen in the following
arrangement.
* With regard to Dudley street itself, itshigh death-rate in 1857, will not have been forgotten;
the mortality among its children, and especially the great excess of deaths from zymotic
diseases, were attributed to dirt, bad drainage, and overcrowding. This last condition has
continued to exist until lately; but systematic measures were taken for improving the cleanliness
and drainage of the Street as early as the year 1857. Of these operations, what has been
the result? In the year of dirt and cesspools thirty-eight children were cut off before they had
reached their fifth year, and there are twenty fatal instances of fever and its allied diseases in
this single Street. In the year of comparative cleanliness and improved drainage, the deaths
among the young children numbered only twenty-eight; and there were but ten deaths from
the zymotic class of diseases, just one half the number of the previous year. On the other hand,
consumptive diseases, and those affecting the lungs, had not fallen in 1858, nor was this to be
expected until wholesomer air to be respired had been secured to the dwelling-rooms. The
recent proceedings against over-crowding and cellar-occupation have had this for their object.
We may look forward to the success of these measures in reducing for subsequent years the
deaths from Bronchitis and Consumption, as well as in further diminishing the zymotic mortality.