Volume 9

Deaths in Bombay.

Date:
1851-1867
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Deaths in Bombay. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    11/70
    * • Vll 9. From the Meteorological Observations it appears that the year was in some respects exceptional. The barometric pressure varied little from the annual mean, but the mean temperature was only 79 1° against an average of 802°. The mean dew-point was also lower than usual, being 71 3°, though the degree of saturation of the atmosphere at the recorded temperature, or the percentage of humidity, was the same as usual, viz. 79 per cent. The wind blew from the sea a mean of 20^ hours, or three quarters of an hour more than the average, and from the land 3«j hours. The rain-fall at Colaba was 76 inches on 97 days, the average being 70 inches on 99 days. I have this year appended a column showing the rain-fall at Byculla, which is almost always considerably in excess of that at Colaba. 106 inches of rain fell on 94 days. The average rain-fall at Byculla is about 80 inches. The year was in fact an unusually wet one, which partly, accounts for the mean annual temperature being lower. 10. If we omit the first year of registration, 1848, as the Returns may be supposed to be then somewhat incomplete, and compare the next six years? from 1849 to 1854, with the following six, 1855 to 1860, we shall find that the « mean annual mortality in the first period is 14,605, and in the second 15,019, an increase of only 3 per cent. But the proportion of deaths which occur in the different localities is not exactly the same. In the following districts a decided increase has taken place : — Girc/aon, Kamatee-poora, Mazagon, Colaba, Dhobee- tulao, Walkeshwar, Mahaluxmee. In the following a decrease :—Fort, Market, Khara-tulao, Parell, Seo, Mahim, Water Division. This accords on the whole with what may be supposed to be the general movement of the population: Kamatee-poora and Mazagon have been getting more and more thickly popu- lated, and also the hill districts of Walkeshwar and Mahaluxmee. The si cms of increased population in Girgaon are not so marked, and the greater mortality is probably due in great part to the increasing insalubrity of the district. On the other hand, the diminished mortality in the Fort is perhaps attributable to the removal elsewhere of the residence of many whose offices are within the walls, the increasing value of house-room compelling them to seek other dwell- ings. Efforts have been made during the last two years to improve the drainage of Kamateepoora, but there has been hitherto little effect in diminish- ing the mortality; in fact the deaths during the past year are by far more numer- ous than in any previous year. The whole district lies so low, being below high water mark of spring tides, that the most complete system of local drainage is insufficient, without a properly constructed low-level sewer, into