View report page

76
population is so largely composed of the better classes
among whom undoubtedly fewer children are born.
The death-rate, though apparently the highest in the list,
is not really so since the 15.7 of 1875 is calculated upon a
higher estimate of the population. The natural increase
{i.e., the difference between the number of births and
deaths) is 152, giving a rate of 13.1 per 1,000 which is
under the average of the above table.
The mortality statistics of this Sub-district have been
arranged in the same form for the past twenty years, but
I have made a few alterations this year which allows
of the more satisfactory grouping of the causes of death
than was possible under the old form. The very
vague classes entitled Diseases of " Uncertain Seat"
and " Not Specified" have been omitted and two
important sub-classes of constitutional diseases (Rheumatism
and Cancer) substituted for them. Then among
the sub-classes of the Zymotic gruup Quinsy and
Carbuncle have been expunged, as of less importance
than a sub-division of the fevers into an infectious and
non-infectious group, and the introduction of the last tsvo
sub-classes in the Zymotic group in the table below, one
of which used to be classed with Diseases of Uncertain
Seat among the non-Zymotic group. Otherwise the table
is on the same model except that it divides all the causes
of death into five inclusive classes—Zymotic, Constitutional,
Local, Developmental and Violence. The table
now presented is founded upon the nomenclature of
Diseases drawn up by the College of Physicians of London,
which appears in the books of death certificates supplied to
all medical men, and is in strict agreement with the table
used by the Registrar-General. It is in my judgment
more useful and representative, as well as more simple and
easy to compile.