VITAL STATISTICS FOR NOVEMBER.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1090, 27 December 1877, Page 3

VITAL STATISTICS FOR NOVEMBER.

The Registrar-General's report for November shows the following to have been the proportion of deaths to the thousand of population in seven principal towns of the colony : -Auckland, 1*41; Thames, 1*34 ; Wellington, 1.92; Nelson, T 2 6; Ohristchurch, 1*40; Dunedin, -94 ; Hokitika, 172. The births were 57 fewer than in October. The deaths were 2 fewer in number than the deaths in October. Of the deaths, males contributed 65 ; females, 41 : 41 of the deaths were of children under 5 years of age, being 38"68 per cent of the whole number; 24 of those were of children under 1 year of age. There were 12 deaths of persons of 65 years of age and over : 8 of those persons were males and 1 females ; 4 males of 67, 71, 72, and 82, and 2 females of 70 and 83, died at Auckland ; 1 male of 67, and 1 female of 68, at Wellington; 1 male of 76 at Nelson ; 1 male of 72, and 1 female of 66, at Ohristchurch ; and 1 male of 67, at Dunedin. The death rates for November were higher than for October at Auckland, Thames, Ohristchurch, and Hokitika ; at Wellington, Nelson, and Dunedin they were lower. Out of 106 deaths from all causes 26 were caused by zymotic diseases. There were 3 deaths from scarlatina during November, which took place at Dunedin. The number for October at that town was 4. This disease has caused deaths at Dunedin during each of eighteen consecutive months previous to the one now under consideration, making, in all, a total of 103. The most fatal zymotic disease during November was whooping cough, from which there were 14 deaths, 12 of which occurred at Wellington. Typhoid fever was the cause of 3 deaths, 2 of which were at Wellington. Thus, of the total of 26 deaths from zymotic diseases in the seven boroughs, 14 took place at Wellington. Inflammatory diseases of the lungs caused 16 deaths in November. The numbers fox each town are the following:— Auckland, 1; Thames 2 ; Wellingfc-m, 4 ; Ohristchurch, 5 ; Dunedin, 3 ; and Hokitika, }. In October there were 12 deaths from similar causes in the different boroughs. There were 7 accidental deaths registered during November. A labourer was run over by a railway truck ; a man died from the effects of a fall, the circumstances not being stated ; a miner fractured his skull by falling down ft shaft, and diod In consequence ; a carter was fatally crushed by his cart j and a child was found dead, having probably been overlaid in bed. The remaining 2 violent deaths were in3ufficisntly described as to cause—one was the case of an hotelkesper, who was poisoned by strychnine; the other that of a woman who was found drowned in the River Avon,

at Christchurch. The total number of deaths in the boroughs for November, 1877, is the same as for November, 1876, but differing in respect of each borough. Against 31 deaths at Wellington in November, 1877, there were only 19 in November of the previous year; against 17 deaths at Auckland in November, 1877, there were 24 in K ovember, 1786 ; and against 18 at Christchurch in November, 1877 there were 25 in November previous .Looking at the causes of mortality it is found that whooping cough, from which there were 14 deaths in November, 1877, is the principal cause of the higher mortality from zymotic diseases for that month, as compared with that for November, 1576, but that developmental diseases of children and diseases of nutrition, the deaths from which were only 7 in number during November, 1877, caused 15 deaths in November of the previous year.