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These figures are capable of almost any kind of grouping, and
their analysis would serve very little purpose unless some guide
might be had in the framing of the estimates for the coming year.
Taking the death-rate from Scarlet Fever as being the simplest
and freest of complications, it will be seen that if the 21 years, 18811901,
be divided into 3-year periods, and the 12 years, 1902-1913,
into 4-year periods, the periods of maximum and minimum prevalence
exactly alternate, and in the one group of periods the
prevalence is, roughly, four times as great as in the other.

The case rate works out in a slightly different manner, and
between 1890 and 1891 there seemed to be a period of minimum
prevalence of two years alternatively with a period of maximum
prevalence of one year.
The period 1901-1906 was a period of minimum prevalence
followed by a period of maximum prevalence of 3 years, 1907-1909.
Then there followed a period of minimum prevalence of 2 years,
with a period of maximum prevalence of 1 year. This alternation
is slightly masked, as the period of maximum prevalence commenced
in the latter part of 1911. We are now in the period of
minimum prevalence, and it will probably continue during 1914
in the absence of any unforeseen circumstances.