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MEDICAL OFFICER'S REPORT
Gentlemen,
During the year 1857, there were registered in this
Parish 1,259 deaths (Table 1). This number is greater by 70
than that recorded in the previous year; but as it includes the
returns of 53 instead of 52 weeks, it is necessary, before a fair
comparison can be instituted, that the average mortality for one
week should be deducted from it. This average is 24, and its
subtraction reduces the difference between the respective
mortalities of the two years to 46. If allowance be further
made for the effects of increase of population, and if moreover
the fact that 39 more deaths occurred in the Lunatic Asylums
this year than last be duly estimated, the above difference
becomes yet further diminished; and we arrive at the satisfactory
conclusion that there is essentially little or no numerical
difference between the mortality tables of 1856 and 1857—that
the last year therefore was for this parish at least as healthy as
the previous one, which on a former occasion I showed to have
been one of the most salubrious years we had experienced for a
considerable period of time. The death rate per cent. was
1.93 or 2.02, (Table 6) according as one or other of two