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each quinquennial period being 1264 and 1251 respectively;
taking into consideration that the population
would increase in a progressively increasing ratio each
successive year, and estimating the increase of population
during the two five yearly periods at 8,000 and
12,000 respectively, and the average population during
each such period at 78,000 and 88,000, the deaths from
these four diseases would be in the proportion of 16
per 1000 population during the former and 14 during
the latter five years. It is true that these diseases
showed an excessive mortality in the year 1869-70, but
this result was almost entirely attributable to the
scarlet fever epidemic, a disease which once originated,
might spread unlimitedly among a population possessing
the best sanitary conditions, unless arrested by the
most rigid measures.
I attribute the satisfactory results, as stated above,
to the constant and effective promotion of sanitary
work in this Hamlet, the disregard and neglect of
which, in former times, has entailed upon us exceptional
disease and death.
The opinion is entertained, and has been recently
proclaimed, by some authorities, that these infectious
diseases come and go, are intensified and modified, rise
and fall, in obedience to some natural and unalterable
laws, and that, therefore, their permanent presence, in
varying degrees, is inevitable. From this doctrine I
entirely dissent, and its reception, as even being possible
or probable, would have a most prejudicial effect
upon sanitary progress in relation to the public health.
I can here only repeat what I have over and over again
stated, upon former occasions, that nothing can be
more clearly attributable to material cause and effect
than these epidemic diseases, and that they are, therefore,
amenable to, and under the control of, human