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19
From the foregoing figures, the actual death-rate of
the estimated population for the year 1871 will be 19.4.
Zymotic Diseases.
This most important class of disease, constituting
Smallpox, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Whooping Cough,
Fever, Diarrhoea, Cholera, Diphtheria, &c., proved
fatal to 86 during the year.
Smallpox.— The number who died in the Parish
from this malady was 14. Mr. Bowman, the Relieving
Officer, as shown by a return which he has furnished
me with, Mat 68 eases to the Smallpox Hospital, 9 of
which terminated fatally.
This epidemic was due, like former epidemics no
doubt, to the neglect of vaccination. With such a
beneficent agent as vaccination, if properly carried out
both as to primary vaccination of infants and re-vaccination
of those older, this disease might be kept within
a very limited compass or possibly stamped out. Last
year 1 re-vaccinated a great number of adults, and iu
no single instance did it come to my knowledge of a
case of Smallpox occurring amongst them.
The precautionary' measures which were taken to
prevent the spread of the disease were as follows : On
becoming acquainted with any case, 1 visited the house,
gave instructions to be careful of the linen, and not to
remove it out of the infected room, and urged re-vacci
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