Though the tables as to death-rate in many of the parishes were still more or less vitiated by various local circumstances, there was considerable unanimity that the death-rate was falling and the public health better. Some diseases which had previously claimed their victims by thousands, now only claimed them by hundreds. Death from tubercular disease had steadily fallen, and the mean death-rate from phthisis in London showed a very satisfactory decrease between 1861–70 and 1881–90.[173]
The Lancet of January, 1887, stated that, measured by its recorded death-rate, London was healthier in 1887 than in any year on record.
In the Strand in 1886:—
“The efforts that have been made by the Board and its officers have resulted in a marked and continuous improvement in the sanitary state of the district.”
In St. Pancras in 1888 the death-rate was “by far the lowest yet recorded.”
In Bermondsey, in the same year, “so few deaths have not occurred since 1865.”
These and similar reports from other districts showed that sanitary progress was being made. But, unfortunately, in the autumn of 1888 there was an epidemic of measles of exceptional severity, which raised the death-rate. And in 1890 there was a sudden increase from 18·4 per 1,000 to 21·4, a mortality which was higher than any since 1882.
The increase served to show the great necessity there was for unceasing watchfulness and for steady perseverance in sanitary work. The forces of disease are ever on the watch for the opportunity to work their evil will, and there were still many weak places in the defences against them. The central government of London had been improved enormously, but the corrective was not extended to where it was most wanted, namely, the local Sanitary Authorities, the Vestries and District Boards.