1866.] CARPENTER — ON VITAL STATISTICS. 151 



But if there are no special stenches to be drawn-out into viru- 

 lence by the summer sun, the cold of winter renders it ; the most 

 unhealthy of the seasons ; as shown by the following table for a 

 year in which the minimum temperature was 11°. 



17. Mortality of London Seasons in 1830. 



Winter Quarter . 

 Spring " 



Summer '* 

 Autumn " 

 Total of the year. 



Average Temperature 36 

 Mean " 48. 9 



Total Deaths 8.5 per 1000 living. 



7.0 



" 6.0 " 



6.6 



28.1 " 



The same is shown in the average of all England for 1857 ; 

 when, the average quarter being assumed as 1000 deaths, winter 

 furnished 1050, autumn 1045, spring 955 and summer 950. A 

 long series of observations has led to such uniform results in England 

 that the Kegistrar General is able to predict a definite excess of 

 mortality for every considerable fall in the thermometer. The 

 severe frost of Jan. 1867, caused an excess of 732 deaths in a 

 fortnight in London alone ; of which only 50 were of young per- 

 sons under 20, and 411 were of old people about 60. The same 

 frost raised the death-rate in the 18 large towns to 31 per 100. 



It would therefore be naturally expected that in the extreme 

 cold of a Lower Canadian winter, the death-rate would rise propor- 

 tionally. But it is not so. For adults there is a marvelous uni- 

 formity between the different months of the year. Old people, and 

 indeed all above 12, do not appear to be rendered moribund either 

 by the intense frosts of winter or the unhealthy heats of summer. 

 On the average of 12 years, it does not appear that their mortality 

 varies more than 9 out of every 10,000 living at all ages ; or as 10 

 to 12 between January, the most healthy, and April, the least 

 healthy of the months. The lowest recorded mortality was in 

 January, 1855, (many of the moribund adults having been cut off 

 by cholera in the previous summer^) ; and the contrast of the year 

 is consequently the greatest, being 16.8 between that month and 

 February. The highest recorded mortality of adults was in 

 April, 1866, when the thawed stenches of an unusually severe 

 winter were precipitated on the putrifying corruptions of previous 

 years; the contrast of the year between April and July being 9-0. 

 The year of death, 1864, affords a .somewhat greater contrast, viz., 

 12-1 between April and September ; but those above twelve years 

 old do not appear to have been more unhealthy than usual. 



If winter cold does not specially kill the aged, we are not sur- 

 prised to find that it appears by no means unhealthy to children. 



