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11
Diarrhœa
and
Epidemic
Enteritis.
The number of deaths from Diarrhoea is higher than has been
the case for seven years, viz., 43, of which 34 were under 1 year of
age, 8 between the ages of 1 and 5, and 1 of a person over 65. The
death-rate for this disease was .9.
Diarrhoea constituted 47 per cent. of the total fatalities from
Zymotic Diseases, as compared with 38 per cent. last year, 13 per cent.
in 1902, and 38 per cent. in 1901, these being the three years since
which the rules for the classification of Diarrhoea deaths were made
by the Royal College of Surgeons and the Registrar-General.
The late Dr. Ballard was instructed by the Local Government
Board, at the close of the year 1880, to investigate and report upon
"the causation of the annual mortality from Diarrhœa which is
observed principally in the summer season of the year," in consequence
of the exceptional high Diarrhœa mortality throughout
England and Wales that year, and which had only once before been
exceeded since the commencement of death registration in 1837. He
pointed out in his Report, amongst other things, the important
relationship between the deep earth temperature and Diarrhœa
mortality, also the influence of soil on the same.
"The summer rise of diarrhœal mortality does not commence
until the mean temperature recorded by the four foot earth thermometer
has attained somewhere about 56° Fahr., no matter what may
have been the temperature previously attained by the atmosphere or
recorded by the one foot earth thermometer."
"The maximum diarrhœal mortality of the year is usually
observed in the week in which the temperature recorded by the four
foot earth thermometer attains its mean weekly maximum."
"Excessive wetness and complete dryness of soil appear to be
both unfavourable to Diarrhœa. A degree of moisture specially
favourable is an amount of habitual dampness which is decided
although not sufficient to preclude the free admission of air between
the constituent physical elements of the soil. Such a degree of
dampness occurs when, in the diarrhœal season, the subsoil water
stands sufficiently near to the surface to maintain, by capillary
attraction, the dampness brought about by previously greater nearness
of the water to the surface; or when the soil, as in the case of
marls, contains sufficient of the clayey elements to imprison enough