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18
The deaths registered during the year 1880, in the
Eastern division of the parish of Battersea, were 531 of
males, and 499 of females. The total number was 1,030,
and the death-rate for the year, in an actual population
of 54,285, was 18.9 per thousand per annum. This is an
increase on the number of deaths recorded during the
two preceding years, and appears to indicate the truth
of the law, that the mortality of a district increases
directly with the density of its population. It is of
course the aim of sanitary measures to neutralise this
law and render its application limited, but it is not
possible with a population of 44 to an acre, which existed
in the sub-district during the year, to keep the mortality
down to the rate of suburban or rural districts without
the most untiring supervision and increasing attention
to details, often seemingly unimportant in themselves,
but in the aggregate determining the mortality of a
district.
Amongst these subjects may be included overcrowding,
condition of water supply, whether with
reference to quantity or storage, absence or presence of
communication by means of overflow-pipe between
cistern and drains, a fertile source of disease especially
to be looked for in every sanitary inspection of houses,
and as the result, many hundreds of overflows being
diverted from the drains or closet pans to the open-air.
Further remarks on cognate subjects will be found
under the heading of sanitary operations.
Ages at death.—The deaths under one year of age
were 419, equal to about 40 per cent. of the total
mortality. Under five years of age the total number
was 648, and 62 per cent. of the whole number of deaths
recorded. The infantile mortality is slightly higher
than last year, but is in accord with the proportions
which prevail over a series of years.