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And this lower death rate was due, not to exceptional causes
•operating at particular periods, but, (as in 1883 likewise, when I
had to make the same satisfactory announcement), to a good
.average condition of the public health from the beginning to the
end of the year; for in all but one of my ordinary reports, thirteen
in number, each covering a period of four weeks, I had to
record a death rate below the decennial average.
The mortality from the "principal diseases of the zymotic
class," small-pox and enteric fever excepted, was, as we shall see,
considerably below the average. Scarlet fever and measles were
little prevalent, and whooping cough was less fatal than usual; but
the mortality from diarrhoea, as a result of the high summer
temperature, approached the corrected decennial average. In
only one of the four-weekly periods, (June 15 to July 12),
did the deaths from the principal diseases of the zymotic class
exceed the corrected decennial average number.
The death rate in the first four weeks of the registration year
(ended January 26) was 16"6 per 1000 persons living, or 4'4
below the decennial average; it was 3'7 below the Metropolitan
rate (20*3), this, in turn, being 4'6 below the average. The
deaths from the principal diseases of the zymotic class (including
6 from measles and 4 from enteric fever) were 20, or 10 below the
corrected decennial average. The mean temperature of the air
was 43° "3 Fahr. or 4°'3 above the means in the corresponding
weeks in the previous ten years.
In the second period (5th-8th weeks—January 27 to February
23), the death rate, 16.1, was 4.1 below the average; the
Metropolitan rate, 20'0, was 5'8 below the average, but 3'9 above
the rate in Kensington. In this month the deaths from the
principal diseases of the zymotic class (including 6 each from
measles and whooping cough, 5 from scarlet fever and 3
from enteric fever) were 26, or 4 below the average. The mean
temperature was 40°.0 and 0'1 above the average.
In the third period (9th-12th weeks—February 24 to March
22) the death rate, 17.6, was the highest recorded in 1884, but it
was 2'2 below the decennial average and 3.1 below the