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19
a fifth Table, compoaed by adding together the four others and representing the whole
mortality of the twelve months.
The first step to be taken in making a sanitary report upon any district, is to try to
ascertain as nearly as possible the amount of its population; this is the pillar upon which the
whole fabric of calculation exists. Now, the number of births in any locality is a tolerably
sure sign of its population, and it is a remarkable fact that in Rotherhithe last year they
slightly diminished, being 876, namely, 423 males, and 453 females against 881, namely, 434
males, and 447 females, born during the previous year from March 25th, 1863, to March 25th,
1864. I shall, therefore, take as my standard as I did in my last Report, 26,500 as the
Sresent population of this parish : this number including the resident inhabitants, and the
floating maritime people, foreign and English, in the docks and on the river, who average from
1000 to 1500 souls, all of the male sex.
Five hundred and ninety-two deaths were registered, 310 males and 282 females, against
661 recorded between March 25th, 1863, and March 25th, 1864, showing a decrease of 72.
The cause of this decrease may be explained by the gradual decline and total disappearance
from Rotherhithe of two diseases, fever and small-pox.
Between March 25th, 1863, and March 25th, 1864, there died in this locality, 79 persons
from fever, and 23 from small-pox, in all 102; while in the past year, there were only 34
deaths from the former, and six from the latter (all unvaccinated), making a difference of 62
deaths from these diseases alone. Both appear absent from the parish at this present time,
June 1st, 1865.
Fever and sinall-pox are, to a certain degree, preventable diseases, the former principally
haunting ill-ventilated, ill-drained, and ill-watered dwellings; the latter almost, if not
entirely, cxtinguishable by the process of vaccination properly performed. If the people at
large were as anxious to procure for themselves cleanliness, comfort, and health, as the Local
Boards are to procure these things for them, we should soon witness a rapid decline of the
above named maladies in this great Metropolis.
Thirty-four inquests were held in Rotherhithe ; of these 15 were on the bodies of persons
not belonging to the parish, these 15 being deducted from the whole mortality 592, leave 577,
which may be taken as the true mortality ; so that admitting the population to be 26,500, the
death rate last year was 21'8 in the 1000, against 24 in the 1000 the year preceding.
1 shall consider, as I have heretofore done, the tables of mortality which accompany this
Report in regard to the seasons, the ages of the persons who died, and the diseases to which
they succumbed. The healthiest quarter was the summer quarter, from Juno 24th, to
S-ptember 29th, 1864, when only 133 deaths were registered : during the previous year, from
June 24th, 1863, to September 29th, 1864, it was just the reverse, for the summer quarter
was the moat unhealthy of the four, and the number of deaths 191.
The largest mortality, 166, was in the winter, from Christmas 1864 to Lady-day 1865.
The numbers were nearly equal, 146 and 147 respectively, from 25th March to 2 4th June,
and from S-ptember 29th to Dec-ember 25th, 1864.
Two hundred and five, or a little more than a third of the whole mortality, died under the
age of two year*; 73 died between two and five, making together 278, or leas than half. The
Smalleat amount of deaths, 18, taking human life by decades or periods of ten years, was
* 1 hare Since found that I have somewhat underrated the floating population.- W. M.