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14
16 degrees below the average, the mortality rose
from 46 to 58 in the week; and at the end of
November, after a succession of cold and foggy
days, the mortality was as high as 70 in the
week; and in December, with an average cold of
37 degrees, it reached to 79. So also in the spring
quarter of 1860, when the daily range of temperature
was as much as 19 degrees of Fahrenheit, and
the cold was likewise great, the death rate rose
from a weekly average of 64 to upwards of 80.
Truly, therefore, has it been said that if heat kills
its thousands, cold kills its tens of thousands. But
still it has its compensating action in the keeping
down of zymotic diseases, for during the whole of
the year these have been far less fatal than usual.
They have declined from a general average of 631
in the year to 474, and this has been pretty uniform
with all the common types of the disease. Diarrhoea
has declined from 121 to 64; continued
fever, including typhus and its congeners, from
118 to 74; scarlet fever, from 113 to 85; erysipelas,
from 21 to 5; and the infantile maladies,—
croup and whooping-cough, from 155 to 111. But
two others, viz., measles and small-pox have not
been so mild in their action; the former has advanced
from 72 to 75, and the latter from 31 to 60.
The chief increase of small-pox was in the spring
quarter of 1860, when the number rose from 7 to
22. Up to that time it had been gradually