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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
It is gratifying to me to be able to report that the rate of
mortality in the Whitechapel District has not been greater during the quarter ending
on the 27th of June, 1857, than it was for the corresponding quarter of last year—
a year remarkable for the favorable state of the public health. 521 deaths were
registered in this district for the quarter ending on the 27th June last, and the same
number (521)* for the corresponding quarter of last year.
Although the actual number of deaths registered in this district is the same, yet,
when we take into account the greater mortality in the London Hospital (103 against
69), and refer to the table of the Causes of Death in that institution, and deduct the
deaths of the non-residents in the district, the difference in the rate of mortality for
the corresponding quarters of 1856 and 1857 is very striking.
Diseases of the respiratory organs (lungs, heart, and larynx) have been fatal to
100 persons, 50 of whom were under 5 years of age. Scrofula or tubercular diseases
(consumption, hydrocephalus, mesenteric disease, and convulsions of infants) destroyed
134, 64 of whom were children under 5 years of age.
The deaths from epidemic diseases were 73, whereas for the corresponding
quarter of last year they numbered 91. The deaths from measles increased from
1 to 14; scarlet fever from 6 to 7; hooping cough from 12 to 22; diarrhoea from 5 to
14; while the deaths from typhus fever, a disease which has always been so prevalent
and fatal in this district, has diminished from 55 to 16.
The saving of expense to the rate-payers by so large a reduction in the rate of
mortality from typhus fever is considerable; this disease being of frequent occurrence
among the poor; and, from the debilitating effects of which, few when attacked, in
cases not fatal, are able to resume work under 5 or 6 weeks, during which time not
only is the patient frequently obliged to be supported out of the parochial rates, but
when the father of the family is the victim of this disease, the wife and children must
also be supported from the same fund. It is important to bear in mind, that on looking
at the tables of mortality whenever the death rate from fever is low, the amount
of suffering among the poor is diminished, (each fatal case showing 10 or 12
recoveries) and the expenditure of the rates lessened.
Not a single death from small pox was registered in your district during the last
quarter, neither has any case of that disease been recorded in the books of the
Medical Officers of the Union.
* In the Quarterly Report just issued of the Registrar General, the mortality for the quarter
ending June, is represented as 515.