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6
Once again it is a pleasure to be able to report that there have
during the year been no deaths from small pox or typhus fever, nor
any notifications of the latter. The deaths from zymotic disease
total 145, as compared with 116 in 1897, 164 in 1896, 117 in 1895,
159 in 1894, and 181 in 1893. The zymotic death rate was 3.4,
against 2.7 in 1897, 3.8, 2.8 and 3.8 for 1896, 1895 and 1894
respectively.
This increase in the zymotic death rate is not satisfactory. It is
accounted for by treble the number of deaths from measles, and
slight increases in deaths from scarlet fever, whooping cough, and
diphtheria, in the latter case, which is the most serious, the deaths
being just double, viz., 16 as compared with 8.
The figures for 1897 were, however, in these respects, exceptionally
favourable.
Of these 145 deaths exactly 53, or over one-third were those of
children below 1 year of age, and 68 were those of children under
5 years of age, 13 were those of children between 5 and 15, 3 of
persons between 15 and 25, 6 those of persons between 25 and 65,
and only 2 over 65, which latter were due to erysipelas and
diarrhoea. Forty-seven infants died from whooping cough and
diarrhoea, and 65 children under 5 from diphtheria, measles,
whooping cough, and diarrhoea. Measles is the blot on the year,
and this disease is not notifiable, though efforts have been and are
being made in various districts to make it so. Diarrhoea was the
blot in 1897, and considering the prolonged hot weather last
summer and autumn, it is somewhat remarkable that the deaths
under this head should show a decrease of 5.
I have dealt with the incidence and prevalence of zymotic disease
in previous annual reports that it is unnecessary to again repeat my
views. I refer those who are interested in the subject to those
reports, for comparative and other purposes.