PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION H. Led 
those of any other country. But it is only like things that 
suffer comparison ; and when from the contrast of unlike things 
we draw conclusions eminently flattering to our own country— 
we have the flattery for our pains. It is simply impossible, 
under the general conditions described, that our death-rates for 
provinces should approach those of older countries as a rule. 
I wiil try to make this clear by giving an example of the 
comparison between unlike things to which I allude, and I will 
point out the extravagant lengths to which it may lead those who 
indulge in it unreservedly ; and as I draw it from the annual 
statistical report of one province among several, I beg that it may 
be noticed that all such reports are liable to a measure of the 
same criticism, although not to the same exactly. I choose this 
instance, in fact, partly on account of the deservedly eminent 
reputation of the Government Statist of Victoria (Mr. H. H. 
Hayter, C.M.G.), who is officially responsible for it, and partly 
because it is apter, rounder, and more suitable for quotation 
than any other of the kind I have seen. Mr. Hayter says 
(and he repeats the statement annually in several years) that ‘ it 
has been held by high authority that in countries in which 
the climate is healthy, hygiene properly attended to, and the 
population in a normal condition as regards age, the ordinary 
mortality incident to human nature would probably cause the 
death-rate to be in the proportion of about 17 per 1000 persons 
living ;” and he then goes on to point out that in the province 
with which he is dealing that rate has been exceeded only seven 
times in 27 years, and that the average death-rate over that long 
series of years has been only 15.57 per 1000 persons living. What 
inference must be drawn from that comparison, which seems to 
show that in Victoria the “ ordinary mortality incident to human 
nature” has somehow been eluded? What must the general 
reader, what must the legislator, whose studies may chance not 
to have included the subject of vital statistics, infer from it? 
Must he not conclude that his province is in fact doing remarkably 
well ; that it affords no scope for the operations of preventive 
medicine, and wonder within himself what all the stir about 
legislation for health means? But when I mention that the high 
authority alluded to is no less a person than the late Dr. Farr, 
C.B., F.R.S., it will be suspected that error has somewhere crept 
in; and [ will explain it in order to introduce some remarks 
touching the search for a health-standard with which to compare 
our rates, to which, indeed, the present fallacy is at bottom due. 
What Dr. Farr really said was this:—He had been examining 
the mortality in 54 healthy districts of England, and had found 
it to be 17 in the 1000 living, and he had compared it with the 
mortality for all England, which he showed to be 22 in the 1000 
living. Upon those local facts he ventured to base the following 
generalisation of local application and use. He said: “It will 
