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7
and foul smells in living and sleeping rooms, as well as in basements and hack yards,
are, espically at night, taken as a matter of course; whilst infectious disease is sedulously
propagated, first by concealment, and then by criminal exposure and neglect;
and whilst these and other evils are perpetuated amoungst the poorer classes by the
example of their would-be-thought "superiors" in every Metropolitan district, so long
the yearly rccurring Herodian massacre of helpless children, whose almost sole use in life
teems to he the providing of fees for doctors and undertakers, will continue, in spite of
all efforts of sanitary authorities and sanitarians.
Table shewing the Number of Deaths from the seven principal Zymotic Diseases,
in Rotherhithe and London, in the 10 Years 1870 to 1879 and in the Year 1880.
1870
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
Annual
Averages
for
10 years
1869-1878
1880
Smallpox
5
23
31
3
—
-
12
7
6
-
8.7
5
Measles
7
9
12
4
22
14
13
31
19
22
15.1
7
Scarlet Fever
124
21
5
13
2
58
12
7
6
76
31.4
49
Diphtheria
—
2
2
1
—
10
1
1
4
17
3.8
5
Whooping Cgh.
22
15
13
21
22
33
20
59
58
38
30.1
24
Fever
13
9
12
4
9
7
8
6
8
11
8.8
9
Diarrhœa
25
22
25
38
29
26
26
19
54
24
29.8
33
Total
196
101
100
84
82
148
92
130
155
188
127.7
132
London
16701
19576
12853
11529
11252
13418
12696
12380
15441
12256
13840.2
13774
CAUSES OF DEATH.
Class I. Zymotic Disease.
I nder this denomination, as you will remember is ranged the most numerous but
one of the several brigades of disease which you and your Officers have to encounter:
the largest being the "Local," which is the third in order of precedence. All Zymotic
diseases have taken their name from some supposed leaven or ferment in the
blood of the persons suffering from them; but we appear to be on the verge of an
important discovery, namely, that each of them is actually and really caused by a