South-eastern Asia, Indian archipelago, Australia and Polynesia, Africa, America

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1892 edition. Excerpt: ...conditions there were more favourable to its spread. There seems abundant ground for saying that the epidemy showed a special partiality for low and marshy grounds. These were occupied by the advancing wave before the higher and better drained localities suffered, and in these marshy localities the disease was more intense. The following are the fever death-rates, and total death-rates per 1000, in the districts reached by the epidemy in 1867:--Fever Deaths Total Deaths per 1000 living. per 1000 living. Port Louis,... 211'0 250'7 Pamplemousses,... 81 '2 96 '1 Riviére du Rampart,.. 817 1091 Flacq,.... 188 34'5 Black River,.... 137 '4 l54'4 The total deaths ascribed to fever throughout the Colony in 1867 was 31,920, out of a population of something over 310,000. The district of Port Louis was that which suffered most. More than one-fifth of the inhabitants perished in 1867 from fever alone, and one-fourth died from all diseases. It need not be said that many of the deaths registered from other causes, such as bowel affections, were due to malaria. Those who survived were so prostrated by disease, that the living were scarcely able to bury the dead. In Port Louis district, the epidemy raged with greatest severity in April and May. The highest mortality in one day was 234, on 27th April 1867. It would be difficult to find any recorded epidemy in history, of which we have trustworthy accounts, that can be compared in fatality to this one, especially as it affected Port Louis. ' The following table gives the deaths in a population estimated at 87,600 (Port Louis) during the second wave of the epidemy, 'i.8. from November 1866 to October 1867: 1866. 1867.,_J__ ¢.?_i i..__ Nov. Dec. Jan. Feb. March. April. May. June. July. Aug....