12 



It is only during the last five years that the annual returns 

 of vital statistics have been issued in their present fulness ; so 

 that it is to these five years — -1873-77 — that our attention must 

 be confined, and from which our deductions must be drawn. 

 Because our community is so small, numbering less than a 

 quarter of a million persons, and because the reports extend 

 over so few years, it may be suggested that the figures are not 

 large enough to permit of any very certain conclusions, inas- 

 much as a few exceptional cases might lead to generalizations, 

 which but for these stray cases would wear a very different 

 complexion. Without doubt this may be in degree true. But 

 these statistics constitute almost all the material at present 

 at our disposal ; and we must be content to reduce them, if 

 we would learn anything about the disease as it now exists ; 

 and leave the confirmation or disproval of our conclusions 

 until our population and our returns furnish us with more ex- 

 tensive data. There are several points, too, which seem plain 

 and prominent on the very face of our statistics ; and it is 

 quite improbable that future returns will prove them temporary 

 or circumstantial. 



Because our attention will be almost wholly confined to these 

 reports, we shall be unable to touch upon many questions of 

 interest, much less to decide them ; since no hint respecting 

 them is contained in our tables. For example, of what moment 

 would it be to determine whether the acclimatised immigrant 

 is more predisposed to the disease than the native-born South 

 Australian ; whether the natives of the second generation are 

 more liable than their parents ; whether, in fact, the South 

 Australian race is becoming more obnoxious to it, and in that 

 sense is constitutionally degenerating, or is acquiring a resisting 

 power, and so developing. In the death certificates provided 

 by G-overnment for the use of medical men, there is provision 

 made for obtaining the information requisite to decide the first 

 query. But no return founded upon this information is issued, 

 owing, I believe, to the fact that the information is not sup- 

 jdied by the medical men. 'Now, it will be seen as we proceed 

 that more than one question of great importance might be 

 satisfactorily replied to did we know how long the deceased 

 had been in the colony. This is the point on which we require 

 and might have had returns, on which it was intended we 

 should have had — as witnesseth the blank sp?*ce in the death 

 certificate. 



Extent op the Disease. 



The first question that naturally arises is to what extent does 

 consumption prevail in South Australia, and how does the 

 mortality here compare with that elsewhere ? During the five 



