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The proportion of these deaths to those of the far vaster number of
vaccinated persons leaves a result not undeserving of the sad and
deep remembrance of the individuals — be they professional advisers,
parents or friends — by whose mismanagement or neglect a calamity
so irremediable has been occasioned It should leave, also, a lasting
and profound lesson for the preservation, at least from one perilous
disease, of those who are now entering into life with all its glorious
possibilities of usefulness and happiness at stake upon a multitude of
circumstances individually small.
Amongst these circumstances, a large number of deaths, chiefly
amongst infants, has been occasioned during the year by diarrhoea.
The losses from this cause have been as many as thirty-eight in the
whole District, of which twenty-one were in the Parish of St.
Saviour, and seventeen in that of Christchurch.
More favourable than this is the report which I have to make to
you concerning typhus — a fearful and destructive malady, about
which I hope it is not too sanguine an anticipation that it will be
swept for ever from the land by our sanitary measures as soon as
they become operative in their highest ultimate perfection. In my
last annual Report I had to announce to you a diminution of ten in
the number of deaths from this disease, and I have at present to inform
you of a further decrease of four on the mortality of that year.
This result is, as you will allow me to observe, a very grateful and
encouraging one, since it is in its hostility to this terrible disease
that our measures have the fairest field afforded to them and the
finest instruments of warfare placed within their reach.
In the construction of my Tables you will perceive that I have
made some considerable deviation from my usual plan. The object
of this novelty in arrangement is, of course, to make a completer record
of the numerous facts which have to be condensed within sosmall
a space, and — I hope — to make at the same time a record that
shall be both clearer and more effective in its communications to
you.