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which appears on the Mortality-Tables, as solely owing
to the sanitary improvements which have been effected
during the past year. The intensity, the virulence of
the epidemic force certainly varies at different epochs.
But some share in this amelioration of the Public Health
must I think fairly be assigned to those improvements.
The Registrar-General whose statistical survey embraces
the whole metropolis and kingdom, says in his last
Quarterly Report, "The temperature of the last winter
quarter differed little from the average, and will not
account for the low rate of mortality, which may be
partly referred to improvements in the sanitary condition
of the people." There is nothing, in my judgment, better
established in medical science than the dependence of
certain forms of Fever and Diarrhœa upon certain aerial
poisons directly proceeding from the human body, or
secondarily arising from the fermentation of human
excrementitious matter. It may be stated as a rule that
wheresoever Fever and Diarrhœa of certain forms arise,
a skilful inquiry will rarely fail to detect some malarious
influences originating in the manner described. Under
the system now in operation I am kept regularly informed
as to the movement of those diseases which are more
especially the tests of unhealthy local conditions. The
Registrar-General supplies the weekly-lists of deaths,
which includes the cause of death and the locality. The
nature of every case of sickness admitted into the Workhouse,
and the place whence the sufferer was brought are
entered and forwarded to me. The Sickness-registers of
the Parish-Surgeons are also examined weekly. Aided
by these official indications, by occasional private