View report page

31
Zymotic Diseases.—Diseases of this class, it will be seen,
have proved much more fatal during the past year than in
1868. Unfortunately 11 deaths occurred from Small-pox,
against one only in the previous year. Almost all the
other Zymotic maladies referred to in the table, show an
increase in the number of resulting deaths over the record
of 1868. The deaths from Measles in the two past years
increased from 15 to 18, Scarlet Fever from 42 to 52,
Croup from 5 to 13, Whooping-Cough from 28 to 52,
Erysipelas from 5 to 7, and Diarrhoea and Cholera, from 67
to 76. The deaths from Fever (Typhus and Typhoid),
and from diseases associated with childbirth, happily
present little or no increase ; but altogether an excess of
44 deaths from Zymotic maladies above the number registered
in the previous year, cannot be looked upon as very
satisfactory.
Other Diseases.—The fatal cases of Tubercular diseases
have very considerably diminished. In the table of my
Report for 1868, there are recorded 228 fatal cases under
this head, but in the present table the deaths from the
same class of diseases, which includes Phthisis, amount to
183, or 45 less than in the previous year. Phthisis
itself, is shown to have proved fatal in 105 instances,
against 76, so registered in 1868. Of affections of the
Respiratory Organs, and of diseases of uncertain seat, the
deaths were more numerous than in the previous year ; the
same may be said of deaths from Old Age, which were in
excess of 14 ; but under most of the other headings of
this portion of the table, the numbers are found to be less
than in 1868.
Infant Mortality.—The deaths of children from birth to
10 years of age numbered 12 more than in the previous
year. In the past year there were registered 643 such
deaths, against 6'U in the preceding year. It is therefore
anything but satisfactory to note that this mortality of the
infant and youthful portion of the population is no less
than 165 above one half of the deaths registered at all