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11
the decennial average; the comparative coolness of the weather,
conjoined with a considerable rainfall, combining to defer the commencement
of the summer scourge, infantile diarrhoea. There
was only one death from diarrhœa in the four weeks: the number
rose to 10 in the following month ended July 17, the mean temperature
having then risen to 61°.3, the death-rate meanwhile
continuing slightly below the average.
In the four weeks ended August 14th, the death rate being
average, and the mean temperature, (62°.5) 0°.6 below average,
there was a great increase in diarrhœal disease, the deaths from
this cause being 44. This heavy mortality, however, was compensated
by a low rate from chest diseases, which caused only 15
deaths. The deaths from diarrhœa declined in the four weeks ended
September, to 30, although the mean temperature had risen to 640.l,
20.9 above the average; the deaths from chest diseases were only
17, and the death-rate was 3.1 per 1,000 below the average, the
result of continued genial weather.
With a decline of mean temperature to average, (54°.8) in the
four weeks ended October 9th, there was a further fall in the number
of deaths from diarrhoea, viz., to 13, a rise in the number of
deaths from chest diseases to 22, the local death rate being average,
(14.9), and 5.1 per 1,000 below the Metropolitan rate.
In the three remaining periods of four weeks each, completing the
year, the death-rate was below the average, the approach of the
wintry season with its cold days and frosty nights, being marked by
customary effects in the reduced mortality from diarrhcea, and the
increased fatality of chest diseases. In my last monthly report I
had to chronicle a death-rate nearly 3 per 1,000 below the average,
a very favourable condition due to the prevalence of mild and genial
weather, with freedom from fogs, such as is rarely experienced in
December. "Seasonable weather" we had not: the weather socalled,
viz., hot in summer and cold in winter, is the reverse of
"healthy" weather, although the two terms seem to be in the
popular vernacular, synonymous. The Metropolis generally was in
good case, the death-rate being 5.3 per 1,000 below the decennial
average. The fatality of chest diseases was much below what is
usual at the end of the year, the deaths from these diseases having
been no fewer than 903 below the corrected average in the four
last weeks of the year.