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REPORT.
Gentlemen,
I propose, in the present Report, to place before you the
Vital Statistics for the registration year 1877, which terminated on
the 31st December last. In doing so I depart from the plan pursued
in my last two Reports, which was to include the twelve months ending
the 25th of March in each year. In making this change I have not
acted without due consideration, for in my first year of office I was
anxious to take this course; but I found, from the 25th and 26th
Victoria, cap. 102, sec. 43, that Metropolitan Medical Officers of
Health are required to present the Annual Report in the month of
June, and I considered I had no option to do otherwise than follow
the plan pursued by my predecessor. Upon looking further into the
Act, however, I find that I am not bound to adhere to the four quarters
ending 25th of March, as I previously considered. My attention was
more particularly drawn to this by a notice of my last Report in the
British Medical Journal. The reviewer in that paper complained
that my Report not being for the registration year, it was, therefore,
most difficult to make a comparison between it and others, or to
correct the death rate for the proportion of deaths in hospitals of
the inhabitants of the Parish.
The custom of making the Annual Report for the registration year
is now almost universal amongst Officers of Health; of its convenience
and advisability there can be no doubt; still I did not consider that
I should be justified in departing from the custom of my predecessor,
Dr. Sarvis, without some good reason; and this reason is, that only
now, for the first time since my appointment, am I able to present
the Vestry with complete statistical tables of mortality, compiled from