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46
The influence of season on the mortality is
remarkably well shown in the returns for the present
year. In the first quarter of the year 637 deaths
were registered, in the second 573, in the third 563,
and in the fourth 723. Now the mortality during
the first quarter was raised by the comparatively
numerous deaths occuring at that time from Hooping
Cough, Measles, and Fever; but the exceptionally
high mortality of the fourth quarter was attended on
the whole with marked diminution of mortality from
zymotic diseases; it was due in fact almost exclusively
to the influence of cold and inclement
weather on the respiratory organs of old persons,
and of those labouring under affections of the chest.
The mortality during the third quarter was unusually
low, in great measure no doubt in consequence of the
comparatively little prevalence of diarrhœal affections.
It appears from the Register General's "Annual
Summary of Births, Deaths, and Causes of Death,"
that the year 1874 was a healthy year, and that the
death-rate of London differed but little from those of
the two previous years, which were also very healthy
years. The death-rate in 1872 was in 21.5, in 1873
22.5, and in 1874 22.6. The death-rates of the five
groups of districts into which London is divided were,