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7
From it we shall find that the mortality from Small Pox
gradually increased from 29 in the year 1869 to 110 in the year
1871. In the following year there were but eight deaths from it,
while for the last two years no death has been registered from this
loathsome disease. Measles was not so fatal as it had been for
the last four years, only twenty deaths having been registered from
it. Scarlet Fever, too, was much less fatal than in 1874, fortyeight
deaths being the number in 1875, while 105 deaths were
registered in 1874. hooping Cough appears to have caused a
greater mortality than in any year since 1869, no less than 79
deaths from it having been registered in the period under consideration.
Fever does not appear to have been particularly fatal, the
deaths from this disease having been 15—a little more than half
the number that occurred in 1874. Diarrhœa caused 77 deaths, a
greater number than has been registered during any of the last six
years, except 1873, when that disease was the cause of eighty-five
deaths. As usual Diarrhoea was fatal principally to the very young,
72 of the 77 deaths having been those of children under five years
of age.
Taking the number of deaths from the seven principal Zymotic
diseases in the year as a crude test of the health of the population
of any given area, I am of opinion that the public health of your
District during the year 1875 was of a satisfactory character,
inasmuch as the deaths from the seven principal Zymotic diseases
in that year were considerably under the average of the last six
years.