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aged five years." This record is certainly very vague, but it probably means that the cause of
death was croup or laryngitis. Another of the cases is that of a widow, aged 43, who was
"found dead," and her death is recorded to have been caused by "suffocation, accelerated by
weakness through want of the necessaries of life.'' The remaining case was that of a man
who was accidently suffocated in a charcoal cistern. A child aged seven months was poisoned
by opium, by misadventure, an overdose having been given to cause sleep. A child aged ten
days was wilfully murdered by some person or persons unknown. A child, in the Workhouse,
newly born, and illegitimate, met with its death from inj uries to the head from a fall. The
other inquests call for no particular remark; they relate to cases of sudden death from natural
causes, in the majority of which, the true cause of death was ascertained by a post mortem
examination; and to deaths accidently caused by violence.
The number of deaths uncertified by a medical practitioner is 16. The total number
during the year is 44, or 1.9 per cent of the total mortality. The deaths in the Workhouse are
45, viz. 20 males, and 25 females; these deaths include three from fever, two from diarrhoea,
and one from scarlet fever. In the corresponding quarter of the previous year, the mortality
was 63. The total number of deaths in the year is 232. The mortality in the preceding year
was 239.
The deaths of children under five years of age during the quarter, are 245, or 46'2
per cent. The mortality under five during the year was 1045, or 45/3 per cent, of the total
number of deaths.
The cases of illness attended by the Medical Officers of the Union, exclusive of those
in the Workhouse, were 2638, and the number during the year was 11,392. The number in
the preceding year was 11,701. The cases of illness in the Workhouse during the quarter
were 393, of which, Mr. Champneys attended 173, and Mr. Richardson 220. Included in
these returns, there are one case of small-pox, two of scarlet fever, one of hooping cough,
fourteen of diarrhoea, and nine of fever. The total number of cases of illness in the Workhouse
during the year was 1677, including 50 cases of fever. In the preceding year, the total
number was 1625, including 110 cases of fever; the number of fever cases, therefore, which occurred
during the past year, are less by one-half than the number in the preceding year. Several
cases ofcolica pictonum, or lead poisoning, occurred in the district during the quarter; three of
these eases were workmen employed in a lead factory in Bethnal Green. As this factory is out of
my jurisdiction, I directed the attention of Mr. Pearce, the Medical Officer of Health for that
district, to the circumstance. Mr. Pearce promptly inspected the lead works in question, and
he informed me, that he had suggested that a hood should be put over the copper that is used
for melting the lead, and that the workmen should be directed to wash their faces and hands
in water containing a solution of sulphuret of potassium. A death is recorded from peritonitis,
induced by lead poisoning.
The only registration district in which deaths from small-pox occurred during the
quarter, is the Spitalfields district, where no less than five deaths from this disease are recorded;
and out of the nine cases of small-pox attended by the Medical Officers of the Union during
the same period, eight of the cases came under the care of Mr. Blackwell, the Medical Officer
for the Spitalfields District. In nearly all the cases of death and of illness from small-pox,
which have recently occurred, the patients had not been vaccinated. In some instances, the
parents expressed themselves as strongly opposed to vaccination; in other instances they
appear to imagine that this disease is a special visitation of Providence, and that it is man's
lot to be affected with it once during life, and the earlier in life the disease occurs the better it
will be for the patient. The fatal effects of the ignorance thus developed are not to be overcome
by putting in force the compulsory clauses of the Vaccination Act; for it is not by compulsion,
that vaccination, the only known preventive of small-pox, will become general; but when
education is more extensively diffused among the people, it is probable, that these ancient
and absurd prejudices will be overcome, and that the grand discovery of Dr. Jeuner will be
universally adopted. It appears that the streets where the greatest number of epidemic
diseases were attended by the District Surgeon, are Phoenix Street, Great Pearl Street, Quaker
Street, and Grey Eagle Street. It is therefore to these places that the attention of the Inspector
has been particularly directed; and from the sanitary improvements which have been