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81
These facts necessarily point to improvement in
the health of Camberwell during the year 1876, in
comparison with that of 1875. But in order to arrive
at more precise results, it is necessary to determine
the death-rates (which are commonly regarded as the
best measure of comparative salubrity) both of the
entire Parish and of its several sub-districts. But the
death-rate is a function of the actual number of deaths
occurring in the course of the year, and (in a varying
population) of the mean number of persons resident
in the year.
The numbers of deaths which were registered in
the Parish and its several sub-districts have been
already given. That returned for the whole Parish
may be regarded as fairly accurate. But those returned
for the sub-districts obviously require some re-arrangement;
for it will be observed that the deaths attributed
to the Camberwell sub-district, which are no less than
934 in number, comprise 230 occurring in the Workhouse
and 99 occurring in two Lunatic Asylums, or
altogether 329 deaths, which belong strictly no more
to that sub-district than they do to the other subdistricts
of the Parish. Consequently, having first
deducted them from the Returns of the Camberwell
sub-district, I have distributed them among the subdistricts
in proportion to the mortality which they