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bronchitis (49), but whilst the average age of those (lying from phthisis in
the Workhouse (38) is very nearly the "same as of those dying from phthisis in
in the District at large,—the average age of those dying from bronchitis in
the Workhouse (57) is half a high again as of those dying from the same
disease in the District. These anomalies are explained by the circumstance
that the inmates of the Workhouse are chiefly adults and aged people.
Phthisis, being a disease, in the main, of adult life, brings down its victims
at about the same age whether in the Workhouse or out of it; and most of
those who died in the Workhouse no doubt came in with the malady already
formed; whilst the deaths from bronchitis in the District fell largely among
children under two years of age of whom there are few in the Workhouse.
There is a singular discrepancy as to sexes also. The deaths from phthisis
in the Workhouse were males 41, females 20, or more than double the
number of males; whilst in the District at large they were at the rate of
males 118, females 100. It would seem, therefore, that when a wife or
daughter fell ill, the husband being strong and in work, preferred, if possible,
to keep the sick one at home; but when the husband or son fell ill, and was
unable to labour, there was no resource left but the Workhouse. In bronchitis
the conditions are, in a certain degree, changed; but this is explained
by the fact that bronchitis attacks older people, and is most severe beyond
the working age. More women live to the age when (among adults) bronchitis
is fatal than men—a fact that is brought out also in the general
mortality of the District, as will be seen by consulting the Table in the
Appendix, where the deaths from bronchitis are represented to bo for males
88, females 119.
There were 20 deaths in the Workhouse last year from disease of the
heart at the mature average of 52, which is lower than the average age for the
entire District. It is noticeable that so many as 19 persons died in the
AVorkhouse during the year at the high average age of 81, of whom the majority
—eleven—were females, (males 8, females 11) a ratio that is consistent with
the ratio for the district (male 16, females 25), and confirmatory of general
opinion of the longevity of the so called weaker sex.
The Bloomsbury Dispensary.—Bloomsbury Dispensary has ministered to
the relief of the suffering poor as largely as usual. The advantage which
this Institution must be to the District can be duly estimated only by a scrutiny
of the figures in the following Table, with which I have been favoured
by the medical staff.

So many as 490G cases were treated by the Physicians and Surgeons of
this Institution during the year. Of this number 878 were visited at their
homes. The smallest number of cases of sickness occurred iu the second
quarter, and the largest number in the fourth quarter of the year. The mortality
however did not observe this rule, it being the heaviest in the first