View report page

89
only 17 deaths of children under five in every 100 deaths;
while in the sub-district of Camberwell there were 40; in
Peckham 43; and in St. George's 48. The infantile mortality
is not unfrequently, and not altogether unfairly, regarded
as a measure of the healthiness of a district; and it is certain
that in the case of our own parish it is lowest in the district
which on all grounds is regarded as the most salubrious part
of the parish, and is highest in Peckham and in St. George's
which are the most densely populated districts, and contain a
relatively large poor population. The infantile mortality is
determined not only by the presence of a high birth rate, but
by the prevalence among the young of infectious disorders,
and by the deletrious influences which unsalubrious conditions
of life and of surroundings exert on them in much more serious
degree than on older persons.
113 deaths were attributed to accidental or other violence;
of these 26 were of parishioners outside the boundaries of the
parish. Among the latter were included five deaths from
drowning which occurred in the latter part of 1886, and were
due to a butcher's wife who went with her four children to
Fulham and there drowned herself and them in the Thames.
365 deaths are placed under the heading of premature
birth and defective vitality. This heading does not fully
explain the nature of these deaths. Some of them were
doubtless due to premature birth; some were attributable to
the presence of malformations incompatible with the maintenance
of life; some were of infants born at full term, but who,
from inherited disease or feebleness of constitution, or from
causes of death which do not admit of clear definition, died
within a few weeks of birth.