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Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health.
17
February 21st there occurred a strong gale of wind, which uprooted trees, and caused a
great destruction of proporty. On that day, from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., the wind passed with
a velocity of fully 70 miles, and with a pressure varying from 13 lbs to 25 lbs on the square
foot. Snow fell 15 days each in January and March, and 8 in February. Fogs prevailed
throughout the country.
The moan temperature of the air for the spring quarter was 51.8°, 0 4° below the
average for 90 years. The weather in May was variable : keeping cold until the middle,
when there occurred a few warm days, followed again by cold days. On the 23rd of this
month, the temperaturo reached 80: on the same day, in the year 1860, the highest
temperature was met with, but it was 76.5° only. The month of June was also hotter than
the same month in the preceding year. The total fall of rain was 4'5 inches, being 1.3
below the average of 46 years. Hail and snow fell in April and May.
The summer months were hotter by 4.20° than these of 1860 ; the mean temperature
being 60.4°. Tho temperature was below the average until the commencement of August,
when the weather set in warm, and continued so until the 11th of September; and also
again September 28th, and remained until the close of the Quarter. On August 12th, it
was as high as 72.9°, being nearly 12° in excess of the average. On the last day of September
it rose to 74°, the mean for the day being 61.5°: since 1814, this is the only instance
of the temperature of that day rising so high as 60°. There fell during the Quarter 4½
inches of rain, 3½ inches below the averago of the preceding 41 years. Hail fell in various
places in July and September.
The month of October was remarkable for its high temperature, 54.9°. There has
been no such warm October since 1831. The temperature in November was, with the
exception of a few days, below the average. In December, as far as the 25th, it was high,
when the cold set in, and continued until the end of the year. The mean temperature of the
Quarter was 45.5°, 2.0° above the average of 90 years. The total fall of rain was 7'4 inches,
about a ¼ inch above the average. With the exception of 1853, this is the greatest rain
fall for 45 years.
I may here with propriety compare, in their results upon the health of the people,
the two last summers; the one having been fine, delightful, and hot; the other wet,
gloomy, and cold. The former, that of 1861, has been attended with a considerable amount
of Diarrhoea, and also many cases of Cholera; whilst the latter, that of 1860, gave the
lowest number of deaths from these causes, especially Diarrhoea, ever known. This was
owing to the wetness of the season, and the lowness of the temperature, which only reached
56.2°, 3.3° less than in any corresponding Quarter for 89 years; whilst the rain fall in the
driest month had an excess of 2.1 inch. In some of our provincial towns there is a great
deficiency in the water supply ; and in these places especially, the abundance of rain greatly
diminished the death rate. Thus Nature made for us an experiment upon a large scale,
and showed clearly the efficacy of water as a sanatory agent. A statement made by the
Registrar General may be thus written: Given a town, where the ordinary water supply is
deficient, the mortality will be considerably diminished by heavy rains. The continued
gloom and wetness of that miserable summer has shewn openly a great truth, which we
shall do well to lay to heart. In Rome, more than twenty centuries ago, no house was
considered fit for habitation, unless fully supplied with water. It is said that at one time