View report page

24
that of every 1,000 children born in the City, 55 die
from these cachectic disorders. In the Western
district it amounts to 64 per 1,000, in the Eastern
to 57, and in the Central to only 46. These numbers
are very characteristic of the sanitary conditions of
the several districts, for they arc the exact exponents
of home influences hostile to infant life. In the
City proper, where these influences are least marked,
the proportion (46 per 1,000) is the same as for all
London, and it is much below (he proportion (52)
for the whole of England. The mortality from
convulsive diseases of children is also excessive in
the City, forming, in the Eastern and Western
districts, from 62 to 63 per 1,000 of all the deaths,
whereas in the rest of London it is only 45 per 1,000.
On the other hand zymotic diseases are less frequently
the cause of death in the City than elsewhere, for
during the last ten years they have contributed but
1S7 per 1,000 of all the deaths—the proportion for
London being 220 per 1,000, and for England 208.
And, moreover, it is gratifying to know that
during the last twenty years there has been a, marked
decrease in the proportion of deaths in the City
from these disorders, the number having: declined
from rather more than 5 per 1,000 of the population
to less than 4. In the following; table 1 have
represented the average annual proportion of deaths
from the most important zymotic diseases during
each of the four quinquennial periods of that time,