184 PRESIDENT’S ADDREES—SECTION H. 
for whole cities, or even for municipal districts within them. 
Such rates teach nothing of practical importance to the prevention 
of disease. 
Before accepting the invitation to occupy this chair with which 
the Council of the Association honoured me, I considered whether 
it were possible to indicate any particular work on which this 
section might profitably labour at once for advancement of the 
Science of Hygiene, and for the immediate benefit of the people 
of this continent. After looking in several directions I thought 
I descried one that stood forth pre-eminent. I have now striven 
to point it out; but if I may say that, following the custom usual 
on such occasions as this, I have indicated rather than described 
it, if for that reason I have not entered into great detail, nor 
spoken with complete fulness, J am aware in addition of very 
many deficiencies, for which I ask indulgence. I have endeavoured 
to say as much as will lead you to pursue the subject farther, and 
more deeply. I have tried to suggest that, as matters stand, we 
are not watching the growth of a race, but overlooking it for want 
(among other things) of connecting our registers of birth with 
our registers of death. And I have endeavoured to show that 
our sanitary organisations in general are wasteful and fruitless 
for want of the guide which annual rough-enumeration of the 
people under sex, age, and rateable value of the houses they 
respectively live in; return of causes of death by the medical 
profession, and registration of them under medical supervision ; 
analysis of that information by the central health authority, and 
its frequent and speedy publication would furnish. J do not 
know of any work in any department of science which is more 
important to the welfare of the people of Australia, either for the 
immediate purpose of preventing disease here and now, or for the 
ultimate purposes of good government ; and I venture to conclude 
by commending to your attention very earnestly the immediate 
necessity which exists for reforming in many respects our present 
methods of enumeration and of registration, and for procuring 
these to be done under one universal law, and one uniform plan, 
in every province of Australia. 
