View report page

35
Report of the Health of the Parish of St. Martin-in-theFields
for the Quarter ending September 28, 1861.
The summer quarter has presented no very remarkable
feature, either of a high degree of health or
of disease. The number of deaths is rather below the
average, and no one disease can be said to have prevailed
in an unusual degree. Diarrhoea is the complaint
we expect, but of the 8 deaths 7 were in infants,
and the other in a person aged 85. Whooping cough
gives the largest number of deaths from the epidemic
class, and these were all in very young children. Only
2 deaths occurred from fever, both in young children.
The total deaths in the quarter were 127, 22 of these
were from epidemics. Ten being caused by whooping
cough, and 8 only by diarrhoea— remarkable, considering
the great heat of the weather. In 1859, there
were 26 deaths from this cause, in the summer of
1860, the coldest on record, only 3. Consumption
numbered 21 deaths, all other diseases of the lungs 14.
From diseases of the brain there were 9 deaths,
during the same period of last year only 8. There
were 8 deaths from diseases of the digestive organs.
From diseases of the heart, the same number, 5, has
been recorded for this quarter during the last 3 years.
From old age the numbers also differ little 9, 12, 9,
being registered during the summer quarters of the
last 3 years. Nearlv half the total number of deaths,
62, have been children under 5, the usual average is
about one-third. In the same period last year the
number was only 27. I fear this is evidence that
the working classes are not doing so well as they have
done, and this always tells severely on the youngest
members.
Of persons over 60, the deaths have been 29. At
the intermediate ages, which is perhaps the real test
d 2