VITAL STATISTICS FOR JANUARY.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 40, 18 February 1881, Page 2

VITAL STATISTICS FOR JANUARY.

The vital statistics for the month of January show a decided improvement in the public health as compared with the preceding month, there being a decrease of 9 in the total number of deaths. The improvement was most marked in the case of Wellington, where the deaths were fewer by 11 than in December (the respective numbers being January 25, December 36), while the deathrate had fallen from 167 to I*ll per 1000 of population. In Auckland the number of deaths diminished from 27 in December to 18 in January, and the death-rate from I*Bo to I*2o per 1000. Christchurch, on the other hand, showed a change for the worse, the deaths increasing from 20 to 28, and the death-rate from T32 to 1"85, and in Dunedin the deaths increased from 13 to 16, and the rate from 054 to 0"67, that being, however, a remarkably small mortality for a city of 24,000 inhabitants — in fact, Dunedin carries off the palm among' New Zealand cities as the healthiest place of summer residence in the oolony. Zymotic diseases, in January, exhibited a slight increase for the whole colony as compared with December, the deaths being 31, as against 29, those of the miasmatic order being the same in each month, viz., 23. Of these typhoid fever caused one death each in Wellington and Dunedin, as against none in December, and Auckland and Christchurch, which had no deaths from that cause in January, had one each in December. The deaths in Wellington from diarrhoea decreased from 11 in December to only 3 in January ; in Auckland, the numbers in both months were equal ; in Christcburch, there was an increase of lin January ; and in Dunedin there were 4 deaths in January but none in December. There was a large diminution in deaths from diseases of the heart and of the respiratory and digestive organs. Of the total number of deaths, 81 were those of males and 73 of females ; 85 (or 55 per cent, of the whole) were of children under 5 years of age, and of these 75 were of children under 1 year old. In Wellington during January rheumatic fever, pneumonia, and dysentery each caused two deaths, pleurisy, apoplexy, and paralysis each one. Constitutional diseases showed a slight increase in the colony generally as compared with the previous months. The births as usual stood highest in Wellington, which, with a population of 21,582, had 77 births, while Dunedin (population 23,959) had 69 ; Christchuroh (population 15,156), 46; and Auckland (population 15,022), 40. There was a decrease of 24 on the total number of births for the colony.