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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
The Sanitary condition of the Whitechapel District during the
Quarter ending 2nd of April, 1859, has been much more satisfactory, both as regards
the actual number of deaths, and the deaths by epidemic, or what are usually considered
as preventible diseases, than it was during the corresponding quarter of last
year.
The mortality for the quarter recently terminated, was 611, including 59 nonresidents,
and 33 cases of death in the London Hospital, the result of violence; the
latter, for reasons stated in a former report, are included in the mortality returns of
this district. The mortality for the corresponding quarter of last year was 686, including
77 non-residents, and the deaths from epidemic diseases were 108; whereas
for the corresponding quarter of this year, the deaths from epidemic diseases were
only 86.
It is certainly very gratifying to me in being able to report the gradual diminution
of the number of deaths from fever, which has taken place in the first three months
of each year since 1856. In the quarter ending April 1st, 1856, the deaths from fever
were 64; during the same period of 1857, they were 42. In the corresponding
quarter of 1858 they were 32; and in the quarter recently terminated they were reduced
to 24, or more properly to 21, as three of the cases occurred in the London
Hospital, and had been removed to that Institution from other districts.
The improvement in the state of the public health, as regards the decrease in the
number of cases of fever, will be still more manifest on comparing the returns of sickness,
furnished by the Medical Officers of the Union, for the corresponding quarters
ending April 1st, of the years 1857 and 1858, with that of the current year. It will
be seen that, during the first-named period, the number of sick was 2,091, and the
fever cases were 327, or 15.6 per cent. of the total number of the cases of sickness, or
an average of 25 per week. In the following year, the cases of sickness were 3,009,
including 195 of fever, or 6.4 per cent., or an average of 15 per week; while, for the
corresponding quarter of this year, the total number of cases of sickness was 2,936,