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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
In the course of the quarter which terminated on Saturday, 2nd July, 1859, the
deaths in the Whitechapel District have been 488, including 47 non-residents. The registered
births during the same period have been 715. The excess of births over deaths is therefore 274.
In the corresponding quarter of last year, 687 births, and 538 deaths, including 58 non-residents,
were recorded; the births, then, exceeded the deaths by 207. The mortality returns for the quarter
indicate, on comparison with those of the corresponding quarters of 1857 and 1858, a favorable
state of the public health. The average number of deaths per week has been 38, while for the corresponding
quarter of the previous two years, it was respectively 40 and 41. It is the generally
received opinion, that the number of deaths in a given population indicates the amount of
sickness; such, however, is not always the case, for sickness may prevail to a very great extent,
yet, the death-rate shall not be increased, the prevalent diseases being of a mild character ; and
on the other hand, the deaths may be much above the average, and the cases of sickness comparatively
few, but of a more fatal kind. In order, therefore, to estimate rightly the state of
the public health, a return of the cases of sickness, embracing the same period, should be
published with the returns of death.
The average number of deaths per week is, as above stated, 38, and that of births,
56. Unless, therefore, emigration take place, or more commodious houses be built on the sites
of those now existing, (there being scarcely any vacant ground on which additional houses for
the poorer classes are likely to be built), the demoralization, filth, and squalor, the probable
results of the excessive over-crowding, now so common, will increase; and sickness prevail to a
greater extent.
The uncertified cases of death are 13. They may be divided into three classes, viz:
those where there was no medical attendant—where an unqualified medical person had prescribed,
and—where a medical practitioner had seen the patient only a few hours hefore death,
and was unable to certify the cause. The deaths in the workhouse are 52, viz : 29 males, and
23 females. In the corresponding quarter of last year, there died in the workhouse 56, viz :
32 males, and 24 females.
It is very satisfactory to find that a great diminution has taken place in the comparative
number of deaths of children under 5 years. In this quarter, 190 deaths under 5 years of
age are recorded, or 38 per cent, of the total mortality; whereas, for the corresponding quarter