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8
MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT.
Mb. Chairman and Gentlemen,
I have the honour once more to place before
you a summary of the sanitary measures, adopted by this Board
and its Officers, during the past year, and the statistics of diseas???
and death, for the same period, by which the health of the
population is usually tested. By a careful examination and
comparison of the tables with those of former years, you will be
abled to deduce results very favourable to our sanitary progress
And as a brief enumeration of the principal facts, in a form
less repulsive than a simple array of figures, will enable you
more easily to do so, I beg to offer a few customary observations
by way of elucidation.
The rate of mortality being taken as the criterion of health,
the year 1867 was the healthiest enjoyed by the Metropolis since
1860; and, with two exceptions, this District has not exhibited
so low a death rate since 1856. The number of deaths registered
last year, including 25 in Guy's Hospital, was 824, being 109 fewer
than the average of the preceding ten years; and, 86 less than
the mortality of the year 1866. This result is not chiefly due to
the disapperance of Cholera, because if the deaths from that
cause were entirely eliminated from the previous years' totals
there would still remain 56 in favour of last year. Admitting
that the rate of mortality in any given locality is not alone an
infallible criterion of its general healthiness, there are certain other
facts discoverable by an examination of the tables now presented
which indicate very clearly that, notwithstanding an unusual
amount of distress amongst the poor last year, this district experienced
a merciful immunity from other prevalent causes of
disease. For example there were 244 more births than deaths
registered; and it will be seen by a reference to the classification
according to age that there was a diminution of 86 deaths of
persons under 20 years of age, 15 of persons between the ages of
20 and 80 and an increase of 15 among persons of more than 80
years old, some reaching the extreme age of 95. These of course
could not have survived much longer under conditions more
favourable to health than have ever yet been attained. This
point is further illustrated by an investigation of the causes of
deaths. Among the diseases classed as epidemics there was a
decrease in every case excepting Small Pox, in which the increase
was only one. There was a decrease of 12 deaths from
Measles, 12 from Scarlet Fever, 3 from Diphtheria, 21 from
Hooping Cough, 19 from Typhus Fever, 8 from Diarrhoea and
31 from Cholera. It will doubtless inspire a feeling of gratitude
to learn that although there were 241 deaths registered from the