adoption of this improved system in the British Army, I beg leave to say: "There is an advantage in having one standard classification; and the grouping of the zymotic diseases together seems to facilitate the application of the remedial or precautionary measures.'

The Daily Record of Zymotic Diseases.-As this is a group of preventable causes of death, and which in one way or another produces nearly half the mortality in our great cities, no delay was allowed in the adoption of plans for the record and analysis of the facts obtained day by day, concerning the local circumstances of every death from these foul-air infections. Born of sanitary neglect, and matured by filth and putrid fermentations, these maladies so point out the localizing conditions of epidemics and ill health that the daily study of them is regarded as one of the first duties in the Bureau of Vital Statistics. This remark explains the prominence given by us to this class of diseases.

In the practical study and management of these infections and filth poisons, the medical topography of the entire Metropolitan District and the hygienic condition of particular populations, wards, streets, and blocks, have been kept constantly in view. The usefulness of district and street maps in defining the chief localities of preventable disease and danger has been daily illustrated. By this, as a collateral aid to the Sanitary Superintendent and the Sanitary Engineer the fatal operations of cholera and all diarrhoeal diseases have been constantly watched and averted.

Small-pox, scarlatina, typhus, and typhoid fever, are also subjected to this system of surveillance and topographical registration.

These are some of the daily uses of vital statistics.

Meteorological Records.—A statement of the purposes and our means of daily observations of the temperature, moisture, pressure, and general condition of the atmosphere, will be found in the Appendix. The station for these observations was selected at the junction of Grand and Essex streets, as a point where it is practicable to obtain as fair an average temperature, humidity, and the winds, as it is possible in the built-up districts of the city. It should here be remarked that at our station of observations the mean temperature is usually a little higher, and the sensible humidity is frequently less, than in Brooklyn and the rest of the Metropolitan District. It was the duty of the Central Bureau to provide for these observations in the midst of the metropolis. And henceforth we hope to obtain weekly returns from several rural stations in the five counties of the District, as well as from Brooklyn. We seek such records as aids in the study of collateral conditions of health and disease. We study causes of sickness and death for the purpose of sanitary protection. Fallacies must be dissipated, and certainties increased.

These statements are preliminary to the consecutive presentation of the

* Letter of R't Hon. Sir Sidney Herbert, M. P., to Sir Alex. Tulloch, in Report of Committee on Army Medical Statistics, &c. London: 1861.

current summaries of results and observations in the Bureau, by months and quarters of the year. It was manifestly necessary at the outset to adopt a system that should make the Bureau accurate and complete in all the records pertaining to it; that should procure and analyze the circumstantial and local history of preventable causes of death; and that should, in every practicable way, help the Board of Health to work out its practical purposes, in saving life and protecting the public health. And I would here acknowledge the generous and intelligent recognition which the plans and results of the Bureau have received by the Board of Health. My thanks are also due to the Board for the encouragement given to the labors of the Bureau, and in allowing a small clerical staff to be trained in habits of methodizing and accuracy under the Chief Clerk, John Bowne, Esq., whose faithfulness and success in these duties, and in his recent labors as superintendent of the Sanitary Commission's Hospital Directory, during the war, have won the grateful regard of all who were responsible for results.

SUMMARY OF STATISTICS AND OBSERVATIONS DURING THE FIRST QUARTER OF THE YEAR.

The preparation of new forms, and the organization of new methods, for the conduct of bureau duties, having occupied the month of March, the entire body of records for the first three months of the year is presented at one view, and without comment, except to mention that not a name or a fact had been placed on public record in the Bureau under the City Inspector during January and February. Certificates, to the number enumerated in the above table, had accumulated. There were also found five thousand one hundred and thirtythree birth returns (in loose slips) for the year 1865, all unrecorded.

The following tables give a condensed summary of registrations for the months of January, February, and March :

The winter was severely cold, but the city and its vicinity were free from epidemics. Universal healthfulness had characterized the last months of the previous autumn in this district of the State, excepting only an unusual prevalence of malarial fevers in certain marshy localities near the water-sides. The mean temperature in January was 26° F., in February 32° F., and in March 35° F. The mean temperature of "the cold week," ending January 13, was 13° F., or steadily 19° below freezing point.

RETURN OF DEATHS FOR THE THREE MONTHS ENDING MARCH 31, 1866.

Per centage of deaths in each period of life on the total mortality of the quarter.

There were five hundred and twenty-nine deaths from consumption, and three hundred and forty from inflammation and congestion of the lungs, during the quarter.

Scarlatina, which had caused five hundred and seventy-one deaths in the year 1865, steadily increased during the winter, causing two hundred and twenty-two deaths in these three months Typhoid fever gave one hundred and ten deaths, and typhus gave one hundred and twenty-two. These diseases were increasingly prevalent when the Board of Health began its duties. The vital importance of hunting out every locality in which these infectious fevers existed, not only to aid in controlling their prevalence, but to indicate beforehand the fields which Asiatic cholera would elect if it visited us, led to the immediate adoption of a plan for the tabulation and study of the zymotic class of diseases. The plan went into operation at the beginning of April.

Diarrhoeal diseases were less prevalent than usual, only ninety-seven fatal cases of both diarrhoea and dysentery having occurred in these first three months of the year.

Food supplies were abundant, and even the usual pressure of penury in the poorer classes was felt less than the want of comfortable and uncrowded tenements. The increasing prevalence of the infectious fevers before mentioned seems to have been mainly owing to the local sanitary condition of the poor, and the inattention to the local purification and disinfection. Cholera, in the preceding December, had suddenly swept off twenty-seven victims in one of the island institutions with its exotic infection. The mortality in children under five years old was, during the quarter, equal to fifty-three and one fifth per cent. of all the deaths. Infants under one year of age gave twenty-five and two thirds per cent. of the total mortality.

SECOND QUARTER OF THE YEAR.

The vital statistics of the three months ending June 30th present certain changes from the winter records. In April and May the rate of mortality steadily decreased. In the subjoined summaries of the death statistics of the quarter, the fact appears that there was no increase in the quantity of fatal zymotic disease until the second week in June, when there was an increase of twenty-three deaths in this class, and when there were six fatal cases of cholera and thirty of other diarrheal maladies, against two of cholera and sixteen of other diarrheal affections the previous week. But that was the week of the least mortality that has occurred in New York this year, less also than in any week for several years. Yet, during that week, ending June 16th, a week memorable for health, for the lowest fatality of disease, and for delightful weather, cholera made such sudden and threatening outbreaks in the Fourth, Sixth, Ninth, and Thirteenth wards, as removed all doubts of the existence of that pestilence at several points in the city. The mean temperature of that week was 694° F., and the average humidity was 57, complete saturation of the air being regarded as 100.

In the last two weeks of June there was a rapid increase in mortality,

zymotic causes giving 120 and 166 deaths successively, and the total mortality of the city being 434 and 533 in the successive weeks. Cholera was certified in but 5 of the deaths; in but 8 of the 967 deaths in the two weeks, "cholera morbus," or common summer cholera," was certified as the fatal cause. And in those two weeks cholera infantum killed 32 children, and other diarrhoeal maladies killed 58 other persons, old and young.

The circumstantial history of the twelve cases (eight fatal) of cholera, and all the deaths from diarrhoeal diseases, from April to the 15th of June, failed to reveal any tendency to a choleraic epidemic, except at one point in Broome street, and one in the Fourth ward, in three foul blocks in Cherry and Oak streets, during the first and second weeks of the latter month. From the beginning of April until the time now mentioned constant vigilance had been exercised in regard to the medical and local history in every death that could be suspected of a dependence upon the exotic cholera infection, the presence of which in the city was justly feared, but, until May 1st, was yet undiscovered.

The twelve cases of well-marked Asiatic cholera that appeared during the first fifteen days of June were, with but the exception of the two groups just mentioned, distinct from each other, and were found in eight widely separated localities. All the circumstances of these cases tended to confirm our fears that this exotic pestilence was invading the city. The complete record of cholera as it prevailed in the Metropolitan District, and a sketch of its progress on this continent, will be found in the Appendix of this Report. But the fact should here be mentioned that early in June the Medical Dispensaries of New York began to make daily returns, in accordance with forms furnished by the Bureau, of patients and places afflicted with diarrhoeal sickness. Hospital officers and private practitioners at the same period began to make reports of this class of patients.

The increase in mortality during the last two weeks in June was mainly in the first five years of childhood. In the preceding two weeks there were but 756 deaths at all ages in the city; 195 of these were in the first year of infancy, and 344 were under five years old. But in the next two weeks there were 288 under one year, and 483 under five years of age in a total mortality of 957. The precise localities in which occurred this increase in the zymotic cause of death were, day by day, ascertained and brought to the notice of the Sanitary Superintendent and the Board. The full powers of the Board having been directed to the control and examination of cholera in its lurking places, the Bureau of Vital Statistics became a very essential auxiliary in that work. At this period it was deemed expedient daily to designate by symbols on large street maps and accompanying lists: (a) the street, number, and location in the blocks in which deaths occurred from diarrhoeal causes; (b) the sex and age of deceased, and the period of illness of the deceased persons.

Throughout these three months, the fact becoming more and more apparent that the want of definiteness in certificates of the cause of death might lead to serious consequences as regards outbreaks of choleraic diarrhoea, every effort was made to obtain accurate returns as to "time from attack till death," and as to the nature of the diarrhoea. During the month of April two deaths were