Modern Statistics of Infantile Diarrhoea.
The first six months of registration of the causes of death in England and Wales, July-December, 1837, brought to light the following highest mortalities from diarrhoea, which are mostly in manufacturing towns, and especially in those of Lancashire and Yorkshire:
1837
Deaths by Diarrhoea
| 3rd qr. | 4th qr. | ||||
| { | Manchester | 164 | 47 | ||
| Salford | 26 | 15 | |||
| Chorlton | 63 | 14 | |||
| { | Liverpool | 142 | 49 | ||
| West Derby | 53 | 15 | |||
| Leeds | 52 | 37 | |||
| Nottingham | 43 | 4 | |||
| (besides dysentery | 25 | 2) | |||
| Dudley | 45 | 52 | |||
| Wolverhampton | 37 | 32 | |||
| Bolton | 40 | 27 | |||
| Newcastle | 35 | 25 | |||
| Sheffield | 30 | 23 | |||
| Stockport | 28 | 23 | |||
| Preston | 21 | 20 | |||
| Wakefield | 22 | 10 | |||
| Cockermouth | 12 | 14 |
The returns were incomplete at first; and, for London, the figures of only three parishes are given:
| 3rd qr. | 4th qr. | |||
| Shoreditch | 73 | 15 | ||
| Greenwich | 43 | 19 | ||
| Kensington | 35 | 13 |
Apart from the imperfect machinery of registration in the first years, the figures of mortality by infantile diarrhoea are incorrect owing to many such deaths having been certified as from “convulsions,” according to the old tradition of the Parish Clerks’ bills. Doubtless this goes on still to a considerable extent; but it will appear from the following comparative table for London that it masked the real amount of infantile diarrhoea to a much greater extent at the beginning of registration than afterwards.
London Mortalities from the beginning of Registration.