View report page

REPORT.
Gentlemen,
I have the honour to lay before you, in my
present Report, the Vital Statistics for the fifty-two
weeks comprising the registration year 1878, which
terminated on the 28th of December last. I thus
follow the plan commenced in my last Report, and
take, as nearly as possible, the natural year, instead
of the four quarters ending the 25th of March, as was
the former custom,
The Statistical Tables, in the Appendix, are prepared
upon the forms compiled by the Society of Medical
Officers of Health; the greatest care has been taken
to ensure accuracy, and no trouble has been spared to
render them as complete as possible.
INQUESTS.
During the year 1878, one-hundred and ninety-eight,
or six and a half per cent., of the total deaths, were the
subject of enquiry by the Coroner; of these, ninety were
violent deaths, the others being such as to necessitate
an inquest into the circumstances under which they
occurred. The proportion of inquest cases to the total
deaths for the whole of London was 6.7 per cent.
Twenty-seven deaths, 0.8 per cent., were registered
without either inquest or medical certificate. Twenty