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There is no doubt that the wet summer of 1903 played an
important part in controlling the disease.
Among the 76 great towns, most have exceeded their average
death rate for the third quarter of the past 10 years from this cause;
some of them, e.g., West Ham (7.3), Leyton (6.3) and Walthamstow
(6.o), by figures almost, or more than, double their average figures
for that period. It is, however, among the lesser towns that the
highest death rates are to be found, and the figures shown by
Farnworth (10.6), Pemberton (9.8), Edmonton (9.6), Enfield (9.5),
and Batley (9.0) are the highest of these. No doubt the probability
of error which exists in making statistics for small populations
accounts, to some extent, for these high figures, small towns often
tending to consist almost exclusively of one class of population,
which may, or may not, be one whose conditions of life, or age
distribution render it unusually susceptible.
A comparison of the six lesser towns with the highest diarrhoea
death rate, and a short examination of some of their other figures
will be of interest and enable me to explain the position of this
district among them:—