[ 439 ] 
private baptifm, in confequence of which their deaths 
were registered, bj.it not their births, amounts to 17 ; 
which might therefore be added to the average of 
ehriftenings for the three laid years, and will form an 
extraordinary inftance of health in efs and increafe. 
The prefent bill alfo takes in the feparate regifters 
kept by different focieties, in which the births much 
exceed the burials, as many of the latter are entered 
at the parifh church. 
The melancholy overbalance of burials, which 
now appears, plainly arifes from the dreadful ravages, 
of a Angle difeafe, the fmall-pox ; which perhaps has 
feldom raged with greater malignity than in its late 
vifitation of this town. Its vi&ims were chiefly 
young children ; whom it attacked with fuch inflant 
fury, that the beft-diredted means for relief were of 
little avail. The ftate of the air went through all 
poflible variations in the courfe of it, but with no 
perceptible difference in the ftate of the difeafe. In 
general, the fick were kept fufficiently cool, and were 
properly fupplied with diluting and acidulous drinks * 
yet where they recovered it feemed rather owing to a 
lefs degree of malignity in the difeafe, or greater 
ftrength to ftruggle with it, than any peculiar ma- 
nagement. Where it ended fatally, it was ufually 
before the puftules came to maturation ; and indeed 
in many they fhowed no difpofition to advance after 
the complete eruption, but remained quite flat and 
pale. The gradual progrefs and decline of the 
difeafe will appear from the Table of Months. Its 
proportional virulence began to abate conftderably 
before it ceafed. I cannot with, certainty lay down 
the general proportion of deaths ; but in one neigh- 
bourhood. 
