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33
Report on the Health of the Parish of St. Martin-in-theFields
for the Quarter ending June 29, 1861.
In the second quarter of the year ending Saturday,
June 29, 1861, the deaths amounted to 162, against
144 in the same period of 1860; yet with this larger
number of deaths it will be easy to show that the
second quarter of the present year was more healthy
than the same time last year. This year there have
died 76 children under 5 years, last year only 51; a
difference of 24, which more than accounts for the
surplus; we have had this year 36 deaths in persons
over 60, last year only 27; so that during the active
ages of life this year we had 50 deaths, while last we
had 66. Perhaps the number of deaths at these ages
form a better criterion of improved public health than
even the epidemic class of diseases which bear most
severely on the very young.
Of the 76 deaths in children under 5, 12 were
returned as the result of debility from birth, and of the
27 who died from epidemic diseases the majority were
the ailing and weakly, who from their birth had been
invalids.
Diseases of the brain caused 5 deaths; of the heart,
17; from diseases of the lungs, including 13 cases of
consumption, there were 35 deaths; from diseases of
the organs of digestion, 13; from old age, 17.
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