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Order 5, Venereal Diseases, includes Syphilid, Gonorrhæa,
and Stricture of the Urethra. Syphilis was the registered
cause of 19 deaths, against 10, 28, and 14, in the preceding
three years respectively. Sixteen of these deaths occurred in
the Town sub-district, and 15 of them were of children under
one year of age. If the truth were known, it would probably
appear that this Protean malady was accountable, directly or
indirectly, for a number of deaths considerably in excess of the
record. There were two deaths from stricture of the urethra.
Order 6, Septic Diseases. This Order comprises Erysipelas,
Pyaemia, Septicaemia, and Puerperal Fever: the total
deaths registered were 18, against 23, 32, and 11, in the preceding
three years respectively. Erysipelas was the cause of
9 deaths,* all of them in the Town sub-district, against 11, 17,
and 3, in the preceding three years respectively. Pyæmia
and Septicaemia were the causes of 6 deaths.
Puerperal Fever was the registered cause of 3 deaths of
women between 25 and 35 years of age (against 8, 10, and 5,
in the preceding three years respectively) all of them in the
Town sub-district. In addition to these 3 deaths, other 6(4 of
them in the Town sub-district) were registered as having
occurred in " childbirth," against 8, 10, and 8, in the preceding
three years respectively. The deaths registered as having been
caused by diseases and accidents associated with parturition (9),
were equal to about 2.5 per 1,000 live births, against 4.3, 4.6,
and 3.5 per 1,000 in the preceding three years respectively.
The notifications of puerperal fever were seven, and, as stated,
three deaths only were registered from this cause. Bearing in
mind the disastrous series of cases of this disease on which I
reported in 1883, when a verdict of manslaughter was returned
by a Coroner's jury against a midwife, under circumstances set
out in my fourth and sixth reports for that year, I have ever
* The notified cases were 269, many of them being of traumatic origin,
unimportant in character, and such as the framers of the Act could scarcely
have intended to be notified,