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1859-60.
ANNUAL REPORT
of
The Medical officer of health.
Gentlemen,
I have found no reason to make the present report deviate materially from
the form which it has assumed in two previous years. There is little scope for
novelty of treatment, or for entertaining writing in an annual account of the sanitary
state of Saint Giles's. Uniformity of arrangement has also the positive advantage
of admitting easier comparison between the facts of different years.
The present history of the vear 1859 will, therefore, comprehend, as heretofore,
the following topics:— First the mortality and death-rate of the metropolis.
Secondly, the mortality, from all causes, in Saint Giles's district. Next, the causes
of death in our district. And, fourthly, the localization of disease, and its dependence
apon local conditions. At the end of this chapter the births of 1859 are briefly
considered. Then, after an investigation of the public institutions of the district,
will follow a special chapter on the prevalence of small pox; and the report will
conclude, as before, with an outline of the proceedings that have been taken for the
security of the public health by the sanitary staff of the district.
Chapter I.— Mortality and Death-rate of the Metropolis in 1859.
The mortality of London as a whole, in the fifty-two weeks ending
December 3lst, 1859, was considerably below that of 1858, and was, within a fraction,
identical with the mortality of 1857. The number of deaths, from all causes,
registered in each of the three years was 60,150 in 1857, 63,882 in 1858, and
61,617 in 1859. Correction being made for increasing population, and again for
the various durations of the several registration years, these numbers represent respectively
the death-rates of 22.20, 23.56, and 22.29, per thousand inhabitants.
The average of these numbers is below the death-rate which prevailed in the preceding
ten years by 176 in the thousand. About 13,000 lives have been saved to
the Metropolis in these three years by this fall in the death-rate.
The same statements are, in general, applicable to each of the five groups of
districts into which the Metropolis is divided. They have all been healthier in
1859 than in the previous year, and rather resemble 1857, a peculiarly healthy
year, in their rate of mortality. The central districts, among which our own is
placed, were, in 1859, midway between the two preceding years as to their deathrate.
(See Table I. Appendix.)
The diseases of the Metropolis whose prevalence in 1853 entitles them to
special comment, were those of the zymotic class, which numbered 16758, being
as many as in the previous twelvemonth, when they were noticed as being
particularly rife. Small-pox has risen from 154 in 1857, to 247 in 1858, aid to