Page:Transactions of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (ser 03 vol 05).djvu/288

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CLEKMAXX,

nearly all of which the mortality was doubled. In only three of these wards, however, the Eighth, Twelfth, and Sixteenth, in which the rate was 7 deaths to each 10,000 inhabitants living, was the mortality above the general rate for the city, which was 4 deaths in an equal population.

The deaths from t yphoid fever in this year of light- ened mortality were divided among the several quar- ters of the year in a quite unusual way; 97 occurred in the first quarter, 74 in the secon I, S'2 in the third, and 01 in the fourth. Hence the summer maximum, which I have shown in former reports to be a charac- teristic feature of the mortality from this disease in Philadelphia, disappeared, overwhelmed by the in- creased number of deaths accruing to the first and last quarters of the year. The diminished summer mortality coincided with a temperature somewhat lower than usual at this season, joined to an excessive rainfall, and followed upon a very cold January and February; while the comparatively high rate of the last quarter was the accompaniment of an opposite condition of things, exceptionally hot weather in Oc- tober, with deficient precipitation in this month and November. Though efforts are constantly being made to better the sanitary condition of the city, I cannot discover enough improvement to explain thereby the diminution in the mortality from typhoid fever since the year 1876 ; I have therefore been led to bring for- ward, as prominently as I have, the meteorological conditions upon which the fortunate change in recent years and last summer seems to have depended.

One of our fellows, Dr. Wm. Pepper, contributed to the Philadelphia Medical Times for January 17,