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Mortality— Causesof death.— Table No. II. Appendix
records the total mortality registered in the district
during the year. The several classes of disease and
other causes of death are arranged according to the sex,
age, and social position of the deceased, with the relative
numbers in each sub-district. The several diseases of
the Zymotic class are also enumerated. In Table No. III.,
Appendix, the total mortality of the past year, with the
classes of disease and other causes from which it resulted,
is exhibited in comparison with that of the ten years
1871-80. By means of the extended information conveyed
by the statistics contained in these two tabular
summaries, a comprehensive view is afforded of the
nature and amount of the total mortality, as well as of
the local distribution and comparative fatality of the
diseases which have occurred throughout the district.
Infectious or Epidemic Diseases.— The class of diseases
in these Tables claiming first attention as being
the most important to the sanitarian is the epidemic or
infectious class, the prevention and diminution of which
is the principal aim of all sanitary proceedings.
The deaths which occurred from these diseases in
the entire district, and in the several sub-districts, during
the year are contained in Table IV. (Appendix). 1 he latter
may be consulted with advantage as an exponent of the
then existing health, inasmuch as the death-rate is
almost invariably found to fluctuate with the amount of
epidemic disease which has prevailed. The total deaths
from these diseases is seen to have formed 15.8 per cent.
of the whole mortality; they were 102 less in number,
or 3.4 per cent. less than the corrected average of the
preceding ten years; and if the deaths, from Small-pox,
of patients sent into the public hospitals, be added, as