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imply publicity. The knowledge of the cases in
question could be confined exclusively to the Medical
Officer of Health for the district. As a tentative
measure, it might at first be adopted in connexion with
the exanthemata only. Prevention is the essence of
hygiene as an art, and the warrant for its cultivation
as a science. "Forewarned, forearmed," the
public through the press, as the occasion might arise,
could thus be apprised of the occurrence of disease, and
be given the opportunity, by increased surveillance, of
preventing its extension; in a word, registration would
have, in the sphere of its operations, all the advantages
we see in meteorology in connexion with Admiral
Fitzroy's signals, without their liability to error.
With the knowledge of the huge mortality annually
occurring from these diseases, both reason and feeling
will be outraged if, in the absence of better remedies,
those now indicated be much longer withheld.
Between 5 and 15 years of age. At the commencement
of this period, the child has been for some time
able to make known its wants, possesses more vital
energy, a greater tenacity of life, and an increased
power of resisting disease. The deaths are much fewer.
The mortality has steadily decreased from birth with
every year of life, and will continue to do so until about
the middle of the thirteenth year. To the zymotic
diseases more than hall the deaths are due, scarlet fever
being much more fatal than any other of that class.
Constitutional diseases, to the origin of which I have
already referred, such as scrofula, tabes, hydrocephalus,
and phitisis, add their contingent. So, too, the local