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busiest of the unregistered practitioners, who practises under the
shelter of a ''bogus" diploma obtained in absentia from a transatlantic
"University," which has no legal existence, "certified"
the cause of 21 deaths last year. Another practitioner, who has
been fined once under the Medical Act, certified in 3 cases; a
chemist in 2 and an unqualified assistant of a medical man in 1.
Of the 27 deaths 13 took place in the first year of life; 9 between
1 and 6; at 13 years 1; adults, 4. The alleged causes of death were,
small pox, 1; scarlet fever, 2; diarrhoea, 2; enteric fever. 1;
delirium tremens, 1; phthisis, 1; lung diseases, 7, and the wasting
diseases of children (often the result of bad food and bad management),
12. There was "no medical attendant" of any sort in 8
cases, including 5 infants, varying in age from 1 hour to 8 months,
and the causes of whose death are variously described as premature
birth, debility and convulsions. The death of a woman certified
from "small-pox" should not have been so returned as she had
not been seen during life by the medical man who was called in by
the coroner's officer. The coroner deemed it unnecessary to hold
an inquest.
METEOROLOGY.
The mean temperature of the air at Greenwich in 1877 was
49°.7 Fakr., or 0.4 above the average of 37 years (1840-76). The
averages of the four quarters were 42°.4, 52 6, 58 6 and 45.0. The
highest reading by day (88°.2) occurred in the weekending August
4, and the lowest reading by night (23°.5) in the week ending
March 3. The hottest week in the year was that which ended
August 18 (mean temperature 63.7), and the coldest that which
ended March 10 (mean temperature 36.9). The dryness of the
atmosphere (i.e., the difference between the dew-point temperature
and air temperature) was 6°.6; average of 38 years (1840-1877)
5.6. The rain-fall was 26.8 inches, the average in 37 years being
24.2 inches. The low summer temperature and the excessive rainfall
during the three first months of the year probably contributed
to bring about the low rate of mortality which characterised the
year 1877.
VACCINATION.
Public interest in the subject of vaccination, intensified as it
always is during the prevalence of an epidemic of small-pox, has
been specially quickened in this parish of late by the abolition of
one of the Stations for public vaccination, and by a sharp but brief
outburst of small-pox in the Brompton district— some persons
going so far almost as to connect the two events as cause and
effect. Down to the close of 1877 there were three Stations in