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The Death Rate among Persons at all Ages.
(Excluding Infants and Persons 60 years of age and upwards.)
86. Six hundred and eighty three persons died at these ages, which is
in the proportion of 1 in every 78.2 of our population, a less proportion
than last year (1 in 71.5), or than the year before (1 in 62).
87. Now the last year referred to, viz. 1870, although characterized by
the prevalence of two contagious diseases, did not exhibit a high rate of
mortality, viz., 27.3, against an average of 28.19 for ten previous years,
yet our mortality in 1872 was so extraordinarily low, as to favor us with a
saving of human life at the most active ages of 28 per cent. of the deaths
at those ages.
88. The subjoined Table shows the mortality of St. Giles in the several
classes and orders in comparison with the metropolis. The deaths that
occurred in the Infants' Home are included here. The comparison is favorable
to us in the class of "Zymotic" diseases, and against us in all the
other classes, but particularly the "Local." Expressed in per centages,
there was 12 per cent. to our advantage in the Zymotic diseases, 8 per cent.
to our disadvantage among the Constitntional, 20 per cent. to our disadvantage
among the Local, and 8 per cent. to our disadvantage among the
Developmental. {Vide next page.)
Low Death-rate among Zymotic diseases. 89. The general inference to
be drawn from these Tables seems to be this, that it is exceedingly difficult
to reduce the death-rate at certain ages and among certain classes of disease.
We had, for example, a lower death-rate last year than was perhaps
ever known in St. Giles; yet the only class in which the death-rate was
decidedly lowered, below the metropolitan rate, was the Zymotic. (§ 48.)
Here, theu, we may fairly take credit for the efforts we have made to
extinguish, if that be possible, the causes of the febrile or catching diseases.
The mortality in London was low, but ours was lower still; and it
would be an indulgence in a timid scepticism not to assume credit where it
seems reasonably due. It is this class of diseases which is most peculiarly
within the reach of sanitary precautions, and we certainly seem to have
controlled them.
Local Diseases. 90. The deaths from the "Local" diseases were in
considerable excess of the Metropolitan rate, but nevertheless much below
our ordinary number. These diseases are represented especially by affections
of the respiratory organs, more particularly bronchitis. This disease
is, in fact, the scourge of St. Giles. Our old people perish of it after
lingering sickness in the workhouse, and in the miserable courts of the south
sub-district; and our young children are cut off by it, prematurely, after
acute attacks supervening on enfeebled constitutions. Bronchitis, indeed,
was not so rife as usual, but it was above our quota; we may therefore
conclude that the mild temperature favored patients liable to this affection
in St. Giles, in common with the metropolis at large; but that there are
local and personal causes in St. Giles that prevail in maintaining an excessive
death-rate from this disease, even under the most favorable climatic conditions.
Diseases among Children. 91. The deaths among children also were as
numerous as in more unhealthy years. Children seem, in truth, to have
received no advantage, either from the beneficence of Nature or our sanitary
interposition. There are causes in operation which we cannot at present
reach. Shall we ever be able to do so? We cannot answer in the negative,
until an effort has been made to provide the poor with better ventilated
and wholesome dwellings than those in which they now sicken and perish.
It is true that the lower class of poor are improvident, intemperate, and
reckless of their health ; and until their moral nature shall be improved,
and their intelligence better cultivated, they will be liable to the penalties
inflicted by their own folly. But, on the other hand, neither men nor
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