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8
DEATHS AND DEATH-RATES.
As already stated, the low death-rates of 1877 have
not been maintained in 1878, either in the Metropolis,
or in the larger English towns. In Paddington, as is
shown in Table II., the percentages of the deaths of
infants under one year, and of children under five
years of age, are respectively higher than in 1877.
This is to be regretted, seeing that such percentages,
as has been stated in former reports, are a primary and
palmary test, both of the sanitary condition of the
homes of a community, and to some extent of the
comfortable surroundings of those homes.
Table III. shows that from various causes 432 infants,
or 15 per cent of the children born in the Parish,
died during their first year of life; and that 697
children, being 39 per cent., or two-fifths of the total
deaths, died under five years of age. In London 21,176
deaths, constituting more than one fourth of the total
deaths (83,695) were those of children under one year
of age. The death rate also from the seven principal
Zymotic diseases alone was, in London, 4.1 per 1,000
living at all ages; whereas in Paddington, as shewn
in Table IV., it was 2.2 per 1,000 of the population.
SMALL-POX.
The epidemic of this disease, which began in the
autumn of 1876 and ceased in 1879, occasioned in
London, in 1878, 1,416 deaths, of which 897 took place
in small-pox hospitals. In the 19 largest provincial
towns, only 17 deaths occurred. In Paddington, during
the year under review, there were but three fatal cases;