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as a friend; and who laboured zealously and efficiently in the discharge of his duties as
Medical Officer of Health in this parish. His death having occurred in October last, about
half the labour to which this Report refers has been performed by me, that portion of the
year extending from the latter part of September 1866 to March 24th 1867.
The review of the year is not discouraging; it is true the number of deaths has increased,
and the births diminished, in proportion to increase of population, compared with the former
twelve months, which was an unusually healthy season; but if we bear in mind, that during
the period to which this statement alludes, London and its suburbs, as well as England in
general, have been visited by two destructive epidemic diseases, Cholera and Small-pox, I
think we have reason to be satisfied and thankful, that the death-rate has not materially
increased.
The population of this parish, I estimate at twenty-eight thousand, which is rather below
the number calculated by the Registrar-General; the fixed population may be considered about
twenty-six thousand, and the additional two thousand are made up by seamen who enter the
parish, and persons engaged in public works, or who are otherwise casually employed.
Adopting this number we shall find, on analyzing the births and deaths, the following
results:—
The births registered amounted to 968, being an excess of 16 over the previous year, and
368 of deaths. This number consisted of 520 males and 448 females.
The four quarterly tables, and the four added together in a fifth table, will exhibit the
mortality of the twelvemonths; from March 25 to June 24, 1866, the deaths registered
were 141, from June 24, to September 29, 163, from September 29, to December 25,163, from
December 25 1866, to March 24 1867, 155, total 622. This number includes 57 inquests, of
which 22 were not residents of the parish, but persons who had been drowned, and whose
bodies had been recovered from the river, this circumstance diminishes the number of deaths
by 22, and places it exactly at six hundred.

The greatest number of deaths occurred in early life; 244 were under two years of age,
57 between two and five, nnd 21 between five and ten, forming 332, or more than half the
quantity; it is not the lot of man to live frequently to a very advanced age; only twelve deaths
having happened between eighty and ninety years of age, and one, the oldest registered,
91 years.
The year was remarkable for an outbreak of Epidemic or Asiatic Cholera; it was not
unexpected; its approach having been indicated by the occurrence of several cases the previous
year, the warning had given time to make preparation for the advent of this dreadful disease,
and Rotherhithe employed energetic measures to mitigate the severity of the visitation.