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beasts of the field. They call up the instinet of self-preservation by
proclaiming loudly what everybody ought to know, and few really
seem to know, that pure air and pure water are necessary to
health, and that everything which leads to contaminate either,
must generate disease and shorten human life. They try to
help that class which cannot help itself, and to raise them to
a higher standard in their social relations. School the lower classes
of Rotherhithe who may, our efforts shall be to improve their
habits; to humanize them and to civilize them.
Mortality of the Month.
The number of deaths from all causes registered during the month
of April was forty-three ; and although this number is rather greater
than usual, I do not consider that the parish at large has been more
unhealthy, the death-rate not always being a perfeet representative
of the number of cases of disease occurring in a locality. Thus, of
the forty-three deaths above named, two were from drowning, and
one from an accident, leaving a balance of forty deaths from disease,
or only one above the number of last month (thirty-nine). About
twenty of the deaths took place from disease of the respiratory
organs, which always form so large an item in the mortality of this
country. There was one from measles, complicated with pneumonia;
and five from hooping cough with various complications. The latter
disease has raged as an epidemic in Rotherhithe, and with great
severity, during the whole winter.
Two deaths from small-pox have been registered; one in a child
two years of age, reported as having been vaccinated. None from
scarlatina; none from diarrhoea alone.
Three persons above the age of 70 died in April, the oldest
being 83, a male inmate of Rotherhithe "Workhouse. But
there is one fact to which 1 wish specially to call the attention of
this board, viz.:—that twenty of the deaths registered last month
occurred among children under 3 years of age, so that our death
register of April might be brought forward as proving the assertion
of those who have declared that above half of the children born in
large towns die before attaining the age of 5 years; and one
quarter before completing the first year. Of course no conclusion
can be drawn from the limited experience of one month, nor have I
sufficient knowledge of the matter to prove the truth of the abovementioned
assertion. It would require correct observations made
for many years to establish this doctrine for any particular locality,
but certain is it that it has been clearly established in many places,
and among others, the City of London, with all its boasted civilization,
and with all its scientific resources of preventive and curative
medicine. Let us quote the words of its eloquent medical reporter:
—" Lest any undue importance should be ascribed to the influence
of bad or inappropriate articles of diet in producing this large infant