The Sun. — 1852-08-03 (London, England)

STATE OF THE PUBLIC HEALTH.  The deaths in the spring quarter were 100,813, and the mortality was at the rate of 2.227 per cell.. per annum, which is slightly above the average of the season. The excess of deaths was chiefly in the town districts, which still maintain their fatal Feeminence over the country in destroying the lives of the population. The rate of mortality in the 506 districts, comprising chiefly small towns and country parishes, was 2.052; in the 117 town districts, 2.436 ; so that out of the same population, for eye' four deaths in the districts where the air and water are comparatively pure, there are nearly five deaths in London and our other towns, where all the sanitary, arrangements are still left so imperfect that no improvement sensibly affecting the rate of mortality has hitherto been effected. In the three months that nave elapsed, 48,357 deaths have been registered in the town districts in the place of 40,000, who would have died if the mortality had not exceeded two per cent.; a standard of salubrity by no means high or unattainable. The season has been unusually cold, but food has been abundant, and from the notes of the registrars generally it may be inferred that the people are actively employed. In London 13,173 deaths were registered in 13 weeks; 2,828 were ascribed to zymotic diseases, 443 to violence, privation, cold, or intemperance. 19 deaths were caused by prisons, 5 by laudanum, 3 by oxalic acid, 3 by essential oil of almonds, and 2 by prussic acid. Two of the deaths were ascribed to overdoses •of laudanum ; the others were cases of suicide, and included 7 males, 4 femaleS, of ages ranging from 18 to 70. One death was referred to Couv:s oil, one to improper medicine, one to lead (a painter, age 36), and three to poisoning by accident. Lis gratifying to observe that no cane of death by arsenic has been registered in London. Of intemperance 20 died, 39 of delirium tremens ; of privation 8, cold 5, burns and scalds 50, hanging, strangling, end suffocation 78, drowning 59, fractures and coete. sions 121, wounds, gunshot and others, 19, other violence 15. smallpox, scarlatina, hboping.cough, and typhus have prevailed to some .exteu not only in London but in many parts of the country; and persons, with families, who are about to visit strange .districts in search of health will obtain information from the notes of the registrar, or by local inquiries, which may prevent their exposure to local epidemics. The following is cne example, among many, of the efficacy of vaccination : " totneas Buckfestleigh—A. case of virulent smallpox was introduced in March last into a wthicklypopulated part of this town from Ply mouth ( here nurnba.s have suffered, and its fatality has been grea.) by clothes brought hither, aim worn by a child about five years old, who took the infection, but passed well through the disese. No other case appeared, the juvewie popuLP.tion having been immediately vaccinated to the number of 400, or nearly u fifth of the whole."  Much good has already been effected by the enforcement of sanitary regulations in the lodginghouses of the country. The registrar of North St. Giles says—" There is a deorease-of one-fifth in the deaths as compared with those of the corresponding quarter of last year, which I attribute to the sanitary erangernents enforced by the police, in making the :Indlords of the houses in Church-lane and the r'keTY whitewarl and cleanse them, and not allowing above a certain number of persons to sleep in the lodgiog-heuses" The v-visit of c d . rats of St. Anne's, Nottingham, and ar , in good effects from South Wales, have recordod similar Public attention omthheassupervision of the low lodging. houses. periodical reports to thebeen before called in these neglect and ili-usage,of children in the large towing particuhrky- in Lancashire, of the country, and more children un&.;.. five--yeaW,3i nwhere the mortality of jis in the healthieat counties, ga is twice us high as it , and much higher than it j 5 in L,0140n.  0 ~e, Q raf-t- .