January 1,

NATIVE MIDWIVES.

1870.]

PROGRESSIVE ADVANCE IN THE HEALTH OP LONDON. A blue book the

recently published

notes tlie

striking

advance in

public health in proportion to the advance of sanitary

improvements. Years 1629-35.?Metropolitan death-rate 5 per cent, per annum, from fevers, dysenteries, consumption, infantile diseases. 16G0-1G79.?Death-rate, including the Great Plague, 8 per ceut.; chief

causes :

foul air and foul water diseases.

1728-1757.?Mortality 5*2 per cent, per annum ; due to the same diseases, with the exception of a great reduction of deaths from dysentery, apparently coincident with the extension of a from the New River, purer water-supply 1771-1780.?Death-rate was still 5 per cent.; due to the same

diseases.

During this period London was undrained, the sub-soil was lioney-combetl witli cess pits, into Avhich all the filth and foul water of households were passed. The dead were buried among the living, and much of the water-supply was derived from wells dug in the same foul sub-soil. In the years from 180L-1S10, with a still increasing population, the death-rate fell to 2'9. The reduction was chiefly in miasmatic and infantile diseases and in consumption. Frarn 1831 to 1835, including deaths from cholera, the death-rate was 3'2 per cent. During the next 14 years, from 1850 to 1861, the deathrate was 2'2 per cent., with a great diminution of mortality from miasmatic and tubercular diseases. ments

hud made

Drainago abolished, wells

works

advances

rapid had

been

Sanitary

during these

improve-

latter years.

everywhere extended, ccss-pits

intra-mural burials had ceased, old unwholesome

were no

longer used,

and

a

purer

water-supply

had been

extended. The present

death-rate,

low

as

it

is,

is still too

high.

19

Progressive Advance in the Health of London.

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