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29
This Table affords a ready comparison with our statistics for the ten years just
passed. The diminished death rate is clue to the infantile mortality, especially that
from zymotic disease, being below the average—in spite of the small pox epidemic.
Various Death Rates.
The Metropolitan death rate was 21.2 per 1000, and that of the 24 large towns
averaged 21.7; both lower rates than in former years; indeed, the London rate has not
been so low since 1850, and our gross death rate, to say nothing of our corrected rate,
is better than all previous records. In fact, none of the 24 large towns of the Kingdom
showed such a low death rate as our obscure waterside parish after all proper deductions
were made. Their best figures are 19 per 1000 to our 16.7.. In 50 other large towns
of England, only 7, (Heading, Maidstone, Dover, Cheltenham, Hastings, Walsall, and
Cambridge) showed a death rate below ours, varying from 14 2 to 16.6. Dublin had a
death rate of 27.1, the highest recorded in the year, but a great improvement on its
last returns.
Christiana was the healthiest foreign city, with a death rate of 18.8, and St.
Petersburg, the most sickly, with 51.4. The American city rate averaged 27 per
1000. The Indian rate was 34 per 1000..
How can these varying figures of health, in which a high place of honour must be
awarded to Rotherhithe, be explained, except the good effects of sanitation are
acknowledged ?
Table II.—Shewing the Number of Deaths from the seven principal Zymotic Diseases
in Rotherhithe and London, in the 10 Years 1871 to 1880 and in the Year 1881.
Diseases.
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
1876
1877
1878
1879
1880
Annual
Average
for
10 years
1871-1880
1881
Smallpox
23
31
3
—
—
12
7
6
—
5
8.7
21
Measles
9
12
4
22
14
13
31
19
22
7
15.3
53
Scarlet Fever
21
5
13
2
58
12
7
6
76
49
24.9
20
Diptheria
2
2
1
—
10
1
1
4
17
5
4.3
6
Whooping Cgh.
15
13
21
22
33
20
59
58
38
24
30.3
9
Fever
9
12
4
9
7
8
6
8
11
9
8.3
13
Diarrhœa
22
25
38
29
26
26
19
54
24
33
29.6
24
Total
101
100
84
84
148
92
130
155
188
132
121.4
146
London
19576
12853
11529
11252
13418
12696
12380
15441
12256
13774
13497.5
17691.0