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One hundred and thirty-two, or 88 per cent, of the deaths
occurred during the third quarter of the year which embraces
the months of July, August and September, being that portion
of the year when, by reason of high temperature, milk and other
food is subject to rapid decomposition. As usual a very large percentage
of the deaths were those of children under five years of age,
and this emphasises the necessity of those having care of young
children ensuring cleanliness, particularly during the summer
months, of all receptacles for food ; the boiling of milk and water ;
and the withholding of any fruit or other article of food which is in
the least degree decomposed; and the desirability of the constant
flushing of house drains. So great an influence has a high
temperature upon the germination of the Diarrhoea bacilli that
it is found in practice that when the earth-temperature exceeds
56° Fahr. an outbreak of Diarrhoea maybe regarded as imminent.
Influenza.
This disease, which seems to have become quite endemic in
this country, contributed fifty-four deaths to the total mortality.
It is highly probable, however, that many more deaths were
attributable to the disease and were recorded as from Bronchitis
or Pneumonia, which are generally associated with or follow
it. The disease is doubtless of a zymotic character
and one in which strict isolation should be observed. The exact
period of quarantine, however, has not yet been determined.
In January the mortality was specially prevalent, and the
usual handbill of precautions to be adopted against Influenza
was re-issued, advising the public of the extremely infectious
character of the disease, and pointing out that to those exposing
themselves whilst in an infectious condition the spread and maintenance
of the disease is chiefly due, the breath of those so
affected being probably the principal medium of infection, and
further that the early symptoms of Influenza are chiefly chills
and shivering accompanied by great muscular weakness and