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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
The mortality in the Whitechapel District, for the quarter ending on
Saturday, October 1st, is 624, including 39 non-residents. The deaths for the corresponding
quarter of the previous year were 547, including 37 non-residents, the augmentation, therefore,
in the mortality is 77. This great increase is mainly due to the numerous cases of diarrhoea
which occurred during the months of July, August, and September, when this disease prevailed
as an epidemic, and proved fatal to 114 persons, of whom 106 were under 5 years of age, and
of this number 70 were under 12 months. Cholera, or choleraic diarrhoea, proved fatal in six
instances. During the corresponding quarter of the previous year, the mortality from
diarrhoea was only 71, and four cases of cholera were then recorded.
The number of registered births is 648, The excess of births over deaths is, therefore,
63. For the corresponding quarter of 1858, the registered births were 604, and the excess of
births over deaths was 94.
The deaths of children under 5 years of age, are 309, or about 49 per cent. of the total mortality.
The deaths under 12 months are 180, or nearly 29 per cent. Of those 57, or 9.1 per cent.,
of the total mortality, died before they reached the 10th week of their existence.* In my quarteily
reports, I have repeatedly alluded to the enormous mortality of young children, and I am glad to
find that this subject is now engaging the serious attention of the public, so that effectual measures
are likely soon to be devised whereby this frightful evil will be diminished. I am very reluctant
to believe that direct child-murder is of frequent occurrence in this country, although circumstances
continually arise to render it far from improbable. The children's burial clubs, and
other small insurance offices, in which the lives of children are insured, have long been suspected
of offering a temptation for infanticide; but without these alleged inducements for the
committal of so base a crime, the facilities of disposing of children said to be still-born, are
very great, for the law does not require a competent authority to inspect the body of any child
said to be still-born, before it is interred, notwithstanding that the parties seeking for the
interment are not provided with a medical certificate, stating it to be a case of still-birth.
When application is made to the Relieving Officer for the burial of a child said to be still-born,
a certificate from a Medical Practitioner, or from an accredited Midwife, is, of course, asked
* In England it is estimated that 8 per cent, of the children born, die under three months.