75 
which have diminished in fatality, and their rates of dimi- 
nution : — 
Per cent. 
Dropsy 31-4 
Asthma 25 '2 
Enteritis 19’6 
Scrofula 17'2 
Pneumonia 16'6 
Per cent. 
Hydrocephalus 11'3 
Old Age 8‘1 
Convulsions V’5 
Phthisis 7’1 
It has not been thought worth while, for the present at 
least, to include in these lists diseases which have increased 
or decreased in fatality less than 7 per cent,, or from which 
the number of deaths averaged less than 2,500 per annum 
during the last ten years. 
An analysis of the death returns of a few of the more 
important of the diseases in the above lists has yielded the 
following results. 
Bronchitis. 
During the ten years 1854-63 the total number of deaths 
caused by this disease was 277,335, and in the following ten 
years it rose to 422,806. We have then 
/422806 ioQn\iAA 
(277335 l‘1280jl00 
1-1280 
= +35-1. 
The increase of the death-rate from bronchitis therefore 
amounted to 85-1 per cent., or to a loss of no less than 
109,972 additional lives, while the total number of lives 
saved by the improvement in the whole class of infectious 
diseases amounted to only 36,995, or one-third of the extra 
loss from bronchitis alone, so that while all the sanitary 
improvements of the last twenty years may be regarded as 
having effected a saving of 1 life in every 134, the increased 
mortality from bronchitis alone has resulted in a loss of 1 in 
every 45. This great increase in the death-rate from bron- 
chitis is the more remarkable from the fact that it has been 
gradual and steady, and appears to have been but little 
influenced by changes in the character of the seasons. Thus 
the mean death-rate during the five years 
1854-58 was 1‘296 
1859-63 „ 1-528 
1864-68 „ 1-778 
1869-73 „ 2-040 
