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amounts to nearly the same thing, adding every year an
uniform one tenth to the previous estimate, as is done by
the Registrar General. It is obvious, however, that neither
of these methods, though they are the only ones that can
be adopted, are capable of yielding a true death-rate for
districts where the population has so rapidly and greatly
increased by immigration as to leave almost everything to be
assumed with regard to it. The Health Officers therefore
can only state in the present report, with reference to the
Mortality, that the total number of deaths from all causes
in the past year exceeded the average of the previous
10 years by no less than 593, and that the total number
from epidemic diseases exceeded a similar average by 118.
Full consideration however being given to the probable
effects of the immigration above mentioned, it is not
unreasonable to suppose that the hightened mortality of
the past year was, to a considerable extent at least,
dependent upon a greatly augmented population.
Referring to the general table of mortality in the Appendix,
the first important point claiming attention, is the number
of deaths noted as being due to zymotic diseases. These
deaths (461) greatly exceed the number (232) registered
in 1867, the increase being chiefly observable under the
following diseases, which are here placed in the order of
their greatest fatality—Diarrhœa, increased in the past two
years from 69 deaths to the large number of 230; Whooping
Cough, from 41 to 77; Scarlatina, from 32 to 66; Fever,
from 44 to 66; Measles, from 18 to 35 ; and Diphtheria,
from 8 to 27. The past year therefore must be viewed as
having singularly favoured the spread of the principal
epidemic maladies. It will be seen also that the number
of deaths due to ordinary diseases (non-epidemic) exhibits
some increase, though not to a corresponding amount.
The difference in the number of deaths due to the nonepidemic
class of diseases in the past compared with that
of the previous year, is 52, and in the number resulting
from zymotic diseases, as many as 179, in favour of 1867;
that is to say, there occurred in the past year more deaths
from all causes by 231 than were registered in the
previous year.