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annum, whereas in the last seven years it has
averaged but 53 per annum, and during the last
three years only 28. In the first of these periods
the proportion amounted to 44 per 1,000 of all the
deaths, in the second it was hardly 27 per 1,000, and
in the third it was only 16. Now, as fever is the
invariable concomitant of defective sanitary conditions,
occurring in those localities which arc stigmatised as
unhealthy, it is manifest that the falling off in the
mortality from it is the fruit of your sanitary labours,
and so also is the notable reduction of the annual
number of deaths from diarrhœa.
SICKNESS AMONG THE POOR.
The sickness returns of pauper practice are in like
manner indicative of sanitary improvement; for instead
of an average of about 9,800 cases attended annually
by the Medical Officers of the City Unions, there were
but 4,631 upon their books during the year which
has lately expired; and the chief diminution has
been in preventable zymotic disorders: fever, for
example, has declined from an annual average of 604
to 78, diarrhoea from 884 to 175, and small-pox from
125 to 1. With every allowance for the diminished
number of poor in the population of the City, there is
nevertheless a great falling off in the intensity of
zymotic diseases, especially of fever and diarrhœa; for
during the last two years the proportion of fever