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42
over-rated. It also enables me to give the births
for this division of the district, which I have never
before been able to do, also the births relative to the
population and the natural increase ; i.e., excess of births
over deaths. The bodies found in the river will be taken
into account in the death-rates of the localities in which
they were picked up, though, probably many of them may
be found not to have belonged to either division of
Battersea.
Zymotic Diseases.—West Battersea has not been
quite so free from Zymotic disease during the past year
as during the preceding one. Those showing an
Epidemic character were Diarrhoea, Whooping Cough,
Croup, Typhoid Fever, and Fever following Childbirth.
Though the cases may have been in excess, the deaths are
not numerous, and it is by their fatality we can alone
judge of their severity. Not a single death from Small
Pox has been registered during the year; this is the
first year, since the Epidemic of 1871, of such an occurrence.
Scarlet Fever, although it raged with some
severity in the adjoining division only yielded 5 deaths
in West Battersea. It is singular, also, that Small Pox
prevailed in this division (the western), for six months
before a single case occurred in the eastern division of the
Parish. Diarrhcea was very prevalent during the summer
months and gave the largest number of Zymotic deaths to
the Register. It would have been considerably larger,
but for the action taken by the Board in gratuitously
supplying Medicine and Attendance to the poor. Too
much stress cannot be laid on the necessity of early checking
Diarrhoea, as the forerunner of Cholera. During the
earlier months of the year, February and March, an Epidemic
of Child-bed Fever prevailed, 11 deaths being registered
from such disease. This is a terrible disease, bringing
dreadful misery at a time usually so full of joy; it is
also very contagious and taken readily by women during