209

There were only three cases of Intermittent Fever or Ague, and one of these cases was treated twice for the complaint. This disease is almost identical with the preceding in its nature and origin, the one running into the other. "In the latitude of London, and 5 deg. south of it, the disease assumes the intermittent type; south of this line its character becomes remittent; still nearer the equator remittent becomes indistinguishable from Yellow Fever." The last case of Yellow Fever (and which proved fatal) came from the Haast, where the bush, I am informed, more resembles the jungles of the tropics than that of most parts of the district.

In my first Report, in May, 1865, I pointed out the cause of these Fevers, along with Dysentery, to be endemic—that is, produced by Malaria—by which I mean bad air, whether from marshes or from decaying animal or vegetable matter, to which latter the term miasm is generally given, and all my observations have satisfied me of the correctness of this opinion.

Besides the Fevers mentioned there are gt, called simple Fever; I have called it simple, not because I considered it of different origin from Typhoid or Yellow Fever, still less because I considered it identical, either in its symptoms or its course with simple Fever properly so called, but because there was an absence of the characteristic symptoms of either of the fevers above named. It has, I believe, its origin in the same malarious poison which produces the others, and differs from them only either because the dose received was smaller, or the bodily health better, or depends upon some other of the many causes which have been known to modify the action of the poison.

Gaol.

The health of the prisoners generally has been good. About two months ago when the weather was unusually warm and close and the cells full, Dysentery broke out in the new wing. On inquiry into the cause, I found the ventilation very defective. This was promptly remedied, and the disease disappeared in a week. Measles and whooping cough occurred in the families of the gaoler and one of the warders, but being sharply policed the disease were confined there. A good number of the prisoners have suffered from Rheumatism and Catarrh, which I attribute to the mode of ventilation which allows of draughts.

Lunatic Asylum.

The annexed tabulated statement speaks for itself. Since the Asylum was opened here, on 15th December, 1866, 17 patients have been admitted, and 10 discharged cured. Of these two have had a relapse, and one of these has been sent to Christchurch, and the other is now under treatment here. One of the patients at present in the Asylum was sent from this District to the Christchurch Asylum, where he remained five months, and had a relapse a fortnight after his return. Medical men labor under great disadvantage here in treating, and giving evidence in lunacy cases, from the impossibility in most cases of obtaining the history of the case. You will see, however, under the head of supposed cause, that a large proportion are confirmed lunatics; the information there contained having been derived from the patients themselves, in lucid intervals.

Public Health.

In my Report hitherto I have had the pleasure of remarking upon the absence of zymotic diseases, or diseases produced by an organic poison received into the system by the lungs, the skin, or by swallowing saliva impregnated with the air in which it is suspended, or by the ingestion of solid or liquid food. This poison is supposed to act on the system like a ferment, and to be reproduced in large quantity, and on being given off by the excretory organs to be capable of affecting, in a similar manner, healthy persons who come within the range of its influence. Measles and whooping cough, imported from Melbourne, as I have found by inquiry, have well nigh made their round of visits to the infantile community. In winter, too, the adult population suffered from influenza or epidemic catarrh. The epidemic was, however, of a mild type; the sudden and extreme prostration of strength out of all proportion to the local symptoms not being so well marked as in the epidemics which occur in Europe. This disease, like cholera, originated in the East, and has followed the same route as cholera, of which it is the frequent harbinger. Australia has been visited in recent epidemics, and the medical men of these colonies do not expect much longer to be exempt from the visitations of cholera, the most formidable perhaps of the diseases which afflict humanity. The usual number of sporadic cases of typhoid fever have occurred in the town. I am not aware of a single case of yellow fever having occurred there. Dysentery and choleraic diarrhoea have carried away a few of our leading citizens. I need scarcely add, that if the town were drained, and other sanitary matters, as well as personal cleanliness, attended to, these diseases would disappear.

J. RUTHERFORD KELLY, M.R.C.S.E.,
Surgeon Superintendent.

1st May, 1867.