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8
MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT.
Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen.
Assuming the number of deaths to be a correct indication
of the Sanitary Condition of London, a review of the mortality of
the year 1861, produces an unfavorable result when compared with
the year preceding. The mortality of the Metropolis for the past
year was higher by about three thousand deaths than in 1860.
The mean temperature of the air in that year having been low, it
was distinguished by the comparative absence of diarrhœa and
fevers, and the prevalence of bronchitis and other diseases of the
respiratory organs. The higher temperature of 1861, while it
tended to diminish these diseases, increased the mortality from
diarrhœa, scarlet and typhus fevers.
In my last Report, it was my pleasing duty to direct the attention
of this Board to the satisfactory sanitary state of the St.
Saviour's District, contrasted with the whole of London, and that
division which forms the South District. The tables which I have
prepared for your information on this occasion, unhappily give
results, viewed either in connection with the entire Metropolis or
the Southern portion, unfavorable to the health of the St. Saviour's
District during the past year. The mortality in London was 232
per cent. of the population; in the South District 2.28 per cent.,
and in the St. Saviour's District 2.65, which shews a death rate
in this District higher than the whole of London by about one in
every three hundred living persons. This increased mortality is
principally due to diseases of an epidemic character, and especially
to scarlet fever. There was a decrease of 12 deaths from Small
Pox, 9 from Measles and 3 from Typhus Fever, but an increase of
10 from Hooping Cough, 27 from Diarrhoea and 54 from Scarlet
Fever.
The total number of deaths from epidemic diseases was at the
rate of 4.11 per thousand in the whole of London, 4.04 in the
South District, and in the St. Saviour's 5.89. This disproportion
still maintains itself, in comparing the mortality from scarlet and
typhus fevers, with the mortality from epidemic diseases of all
kinds. In London, in every hundred deaths from epidemic
diseases 6.3 were from fevers; in the South Districts 6.6, and in
St. Saviour's 8.8. It should, however, be observed that in making
these comparisons, the St. Saviour's District is compared with very
large areas, portions of which enjoyed almost entire immunity
from fever. Many of the sub-districts of London exhibit an
equally high mortality. Somers Town, West Islington, Belgravia,
St. George's Bloomsbury, Battersea, and many others suffered with
nearly equal severity; while in the North-west London District,