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13
zymotic diseases, the proportions for the last year
have been below the average; and even in respect
of the zymotic group the increase has been chiefly
from one kind of disorder, namely, alvine flux, the
deaths from which have risen from an average of
93 in the year to 177, and this increase has been
entirely among adults—the mortality of children
from the disorder having been at the common
average of 68 for the year. I hope shortly to
make this the subject of a special report, and to
show you how year by year, with the progress of
sanitary measures in the City, the mortality from
alvine disorders has been steadily declining; that
while in the course of the first six years after you
became possessed of your increased sanitary powers,
the average mortality from alvine disorders was at
the rate of 64.2 per 1,000 deaths, or 93.5 per
10,000 of the population, it was in the next six
years but 14.2 per 1,000 deaths, or 20.6 per 10,000
of the population, and in the six years which have
just expired, it has been but 12.5 per 1,000 deaths,
or 181 per 10,000 of the population.
Some notion may thus be formed of the value of
your sanitary labours, although it is perhaps better
seen in the diminished mortality from alvine disorders
at each successive visitation of cholera. In
1848, for example, when your sanitary powers
were enlarged, cholera was among us, and at that