I propose in this, the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Medical Officer of
Health, to follow the plan adopted in my previous reports: that is to
say, the vital statistics will be made up to the end of the registration
year (January 2nd, 1875), for the sake of comparison with the
Registrar-General’s figures for the entire Metropolis: the Tables,
showing the sanitary work carried out by your very competent staff of
inspectors, will be made up to the end of the Vestry year (March 25th,
1875); while, with respect to other matters calling for notice, I shall
bring the report down to the latest possible period, no useful purpose
being served by delay; it being, moreover, in every way the better plan
to refer to subjects while they are tolerably fresh in recollection, and
before they have lost their interest. I shall, as usual, preface my
report with some general remarks, which, I trust, will be found worthy of
perusal. And I may here mention that the first Six Tables in the
Appendix are given in the form settled last year by the Society of
Medical Officers of Health, with a view to ensure uniformity in
statistical returns. The subject was brought under the notice of the
Society by myself, and a great deal of thought and labour devoted to it,
in order to make the tables generally acceptable. I now pass on to
observe that the public health in this Parish, as gauged by the gross
mortality, was not so good during the year 1874 as in the previous year,
the deaths registered (2,696) showing an increase of 260. The increase
in the _rate_ of mortality, however, was not large in proportion, for as
the population increased by 5,000, 91 deaths have to be deducted on that
account, while 32 deaths are accounted for by an increase in the number
of deaths of non-parishioners registered at the Brompton Hospital for
Consumption and the Diseases of the Chest. The real excess of mortality,
therefore, was 137, and of these deaths 98 belong to the group of zymotic
diseases, and were due to a severe and prolonged epidemic of measles,
leaving 39 deaths to be spread over the remainder of Table 3 (Appendix);
but as a matter of fact the higher rate of mortality from chest diseases,
which will be referred to hereafter, more than accounts for this number.
If we assume that the deaths of Kensington parishioners outside the
parish were as numerous as the deaths of non-parishioners at the Brompton
Hospital, which is situated within the parish, the rate of mortality
during the year would be 19.5 per 1,000 persons living—a rate that
compares not unfavourably with the rate for the entire metropolis, which
was 22.5 per 1000. If, however, in the absence of definite information
respecting deaths of parishioners taking place out of the parish, we
restrict our view to the deaths of parishioners registered within the
parish—deducting 125 deaths at the hospital and 36 at St. Joseph’s
House—the rate of mortality was only 18.3 per 1,000. The subjoined table
shows the rate in the several great divisions of the metropolis, as given
by the Registrar-General in his annual summary, and in Kensington:—