Sanitary ramblings. Being sketches and illustrations of Bethnal Green. A type of the condition of the Metropolis and other large towns / [Hector Gavin].
- Hector Gavin
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sanitary ramblings. Being sketches and illustrations of Bethnal Green. A type of the condition of the Metropolis and other large towns / [Hector Gavin]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
119/144 page 101
![The relative healthiness of the different districts therefore is as follows :—The Green, the Church, Hackney Road, the Town. The relative mortality being 1 in 57, 50, 50, and 43. The relative proportion of deaths from Zymotic diseases, 1 in 132, 260, 195, and in 137. The relative proportion of births is I in 3T1., 277., 27‘8, 27-6. It is readily understood by the accounts contained in the preceding pages, why there should be so great a difference in the mortality in the Green, and in the Town districts. The one open and free, the other close and confined. But the great proportion in which it suffers from epidemic diseases could scarcely have been anticipated, but must be traced to the abominable filthiness, and the great amount of vegetable and animal remains surrounding the houses of the poor, as well as to its exposure to the emanations from the marshes which surround it, and against which it has no defence, but itself acts as the barrier to their spread to- wards London. The facts, however, most clearly point out that in a poor po- pulation, surrounded by much filth, with scarcely any drainage and still less sewerage, with street cleansing greatly neglected, and a high mortality from epi- demics; a very low rate of mortality can be obtained by the avoidance ot over crowding and an abundant supply of air. And that the causes which destroy the poor, arising from filth and the absence of facilities for its removal, are not only epidemic diseases, but the excess in several, and the greater frequency of all those other diseases to which man is subject. The law by which an all wise Providence supplies the loss caused by an ex- cessive mortality is clearly enough demonstrated here; for, while in the compa- ratively healthy district the ratio of deaths is 1 in 57, and the ratio of births 1 in 31-1., in the unhealthy district the ratio of deaths is ] in 43, and the ratio of births 1 in 27’6. The accompanying lithographic plate of the parish exhibits the Disease Mist which overhangs it, and destroys, and enfeebles, the population; this Angel of death not only breathes pestilence, and causes an afflicted people to render back dust to dust, but is accompanied with that destroying Angel which breathes a moral pestilence; for where the seeds of physical death are thickly sown, and yield an abundant harvest, there moral death overshadows the land,—and sweeps with the besom of destruction to an eternal gulf. ! TABLE VIII. The following Table exhibits the number of males and females that have died in one year, and the ages at which they have died; and also the number living at the termination of a given period:— THE STREAM OF LIFE, OR TABLE OF MORTALITY IN THE PARISH OF BETHNAL-GREEN IN TWELVE MONTHS, ENDING OCT. 1, 1847. (Extracted and compiled from the returns to the Register-general.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22014834_0119.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
