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This table shows a large reduction in the number of cases
in 1884-5, that were reported to me as having been treated
at home or removed to the Hospital, as compared with 1883-4.
In the former year, 1884-5, there were only 602 oases
reported against 1211 in the last-named year, and 491 removed
to the Hospital against 923 in 1883-4. It is however very
significant as to the alteration in the character of the cases
treated in the Hospital, that although in 1883-4 the average
number of Small-pox patients reported to be under treatment
at the end of every fortnight was 42 in 1883-4 and only 21 in
1884-5, that the number of deaths in the former year was 214
and of the latter 217. It is evident, therefore, that the worst
cases only were treated in the Hospital in 1884-5, and that
the patients were removed at an earlier period of the disease in
1884-5 than in 1883-4, so that the proportion of acute cases to
the whole number treated was much greater in the first-named
than in the latter year. The treatment of a number of Smallpox
patients in the acute stage in one Ward is, in my opinion,
attended with greater risk to the neighbourhood than a larger
number of mixed cases, and probably accounts for the continuance