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REPORT
To the Board of Works for the Hackney District.
Gentlemen,
The mortality during this quarter has been remarkably small; 382
deaths only having been registered against 452 in the corresponding
quarter of last year. The extreme severity of the weather last year, and
the unusual mildness of it this, will account, in some measure, for the
marked decrease in the mortuary rate, but this cannot be the only cause,
as the improved rate in Hackney District has been in excess of that for
the whole of London. During the quarter ending April 3rd, 1858, no
less than 100 children died in this District who were under one year of
age ; whilst only 60 died during the corresponding period now under consideration
: further, the death rate in 1858 was larger at all periods of
life, excepting only amongst persons above 80 years old. Now, this,
at first sight, appears very singular ; but we find that the death rate of
persons who have attained above the ordinary age of man, is not so dependent
on alternations of temperature as we might suppose, provided they
are able to protect themselves from the weather and procure abundant
comforts; but, that next after the very young, those who are above 00
and under 80 years of age suffer to the greatest extent from severe
weather.
The rate of death from the different groups of diseases was somewhere
about an average during the last quarter, except as regards inflammatory
diseases of the lungs and consumption : the number of deaths from the
zymotic class, and diseases of the stomach, digestive organs, and kidney,
were but little altered. The high rate of death from zymotic diseases
which has obtained all over London during the last four or five years, has
arisen in great part from the prevalence of scarlet fever, diptheria, and
hooping-cough; which produced an aggregate mortality of nearly oneninth
of the total number of deaths in Hackney, and yet has not been
nearly so fatal as in many other localities.