62 MR. J. BAXENDELL ON CHANGES IN 



crease. Thus the average death-rate for all England and 

 Wales during the ten years 1854-63 was 22*14, while in 

 the following ten years 1864-73 i* ^^^ 22-45, o^ ^'4 P^^' 

 cent, greater. 



That the present sanitary system is very defective and 

 not likely to produce any material improvement in the 

 public health is virtually admitted by many officers of 

 health, who now frequently state in their reports that the 

 deaths which have occurred in their districts were from 

 causes over which the board or sanitary authority had no 

 control ; by which it is commonly understood that the dis- 

 eases which caused the deaths were not contagious or in- 

 fectious, or, as they are now frequently termed, " prevent- 

 ible,"- the operation of the present system being thus 

 confessedly limited to a group of diseases which cause only 

 about one seventh of the total number of deaths. But we 

 have seen that during the last twenty years there has been 

 no diminution in the general death-rate ; and it is evident, 

 therefore, either that sanitary measures have failed entirely 

 to reduce the mortality from the so-called preventible 

 diseases, or that any reduction they have effected has been 

 counterbalanced by a corresponding increase in the mor- 

 tality from the non-preventible class. With a view to de- 

 termine which of these conclusions is the true one, I have 

 compared the rates of mortality from different diseases 

 during the ten years 1854-63 with those for the suc- 

 ceeding ten years, 1864-73, the year 1873 being the last 

 for which an annual report has been published by the 

 Registrar General. 



The mean population of England and Wales for the first 

 period was 19,592,113, and for the second 22,099,664, the 

 ratio of these numbers being as i : i'i28o. 



The following table shows the number of deaths in each 

 period from each of eight infectious diseases, the corre- 



