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18
A glance at this table will show the remarkable
periodicity of the disease, in the circumstance that,
at intervals of about every two years, it acquires
epidemic violence, and becomes alarmingly fatal,
and then declines for a couple of years. Taking,
for example, the two years successively, from 1849
to 1871, it will be seen that the number of deaths
in each of the biennial periods is as follows:—50,
in 1849-50; 137, in 1851-52; 24, in 1853-54; 91,
in 1855-56; 20, in 1857-58; 107, in 1859-60; 8, in
1861-62; 66, in 1863-64; 37, in 1865-66; 49, in
1867-68; 5, in 1869-70; and 88, in 1871—the
average annual mortality of the epidemic periods
being 49, and of the alternating years only 12. This
condition of tilings is not peculiar to the City, but is
common to the whole metropolis, and to every large
town in England, although the intervals of the
epidemic are not in all cases the same. In London,
for instance, the interval is about three years, and
in other centres of population it varies from four to
five years. This is no doubt determined by the
relative density of the population, and by other circumstances
which favour the development of the
disease—as the habits of the people and the neglect
or otherwise of vaccination. I have discussed this
question to some extent in a former report, and have
shewn that the force of an epidcmic of smallpox is
always proportional to the neglect of proper and