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8
schedule of diseases to which the Act relates is not sufficiently
comprehensive, and fails to include several diseases which should
receive a place in that category.
Whooping Cough is a complaint of a highly contagious
character, and is one of the most fatal oi the Zymotic diseases.
During the year it caused the death of 137 persons. The mortality
of the last twenty years has never been represented by a fewer
number of cases than 89, and in 1878 it was characterised by the
enormous total of 342.
During the two decades, the fatality from Whooping Cough was
greater by twenty-five per cent, than that produced from the
combined effects of Small Pox, Typhus, Typhoid and Diphtheria.
Although a childrens disease, people at all periods of life arc
subject 10 its influence, and many complaints of the chest carelessly
attributed 10 the effects of cold may be traced as deriving their
origin from the poison of this unheeded Zymotic disease. However,
the injury inflicted upon the population by the prevalence of
Whooping Cough, is not represented in a tithe of it- extent by the
death returns. An attack in children, even when the disease is not
of a severe type, distorts the chest walls, contracts its cavity, and
permanently impairs the elasticity of the lungs.
People who suffer from the chest diseases that commonly
result from an attack of Whooping Cough in early life, find themselves
unequal to the strain of any prolonged muscular effort,
subject to early fatigue and at a disadvantage as compared with
their fellows in the pursuits and occupations of life.
Measles, another child's complaint, a disease accompanied by a
considerable mortality, and characterised by after effects, which
although perhaps less formidable, arc sufficiently serious, docs not
find a place in the Schedule. These diseases, it would appear,
have been omitted because for the greater part the attacks are
confined to the child population. But a consideration of the
largeness of the death returns, and the injurious after effects of