Years Diarrhoea Dysentery Cholera Gastritis and
Enteritis
Convulsions
1838 393 105 15 881 3419
1839 376 79 36 843 2961
1840 452 70 60 977 2983
1841 465 78 28 957 2778
1842 704 151 118 996 2773
1843 834 271 85 874 2701
1844 705 125 65 818 2736
1845 841 99 43 707 2395
1846 2152 156 228 648 2086
1847 1976 2258

There is a progressive decline under “convulsions” and a progressive increase under diarrhoea. The year 1846 was undoubtedly marked by an unusual amount of choleraic disease; but the high level of the diarrhoeal deaths was maintained from that year, so that it is probable that some radical change had been made in the mode of entry. The nearly equal proportion of deaths from diarrhoea and from convulsions in London has continued since that time to the present, the former falling mostly in the third quarter of the year, the latter not unequally on all the quarters.

In all England and Wales during the first five and a half years of registration the deaths from diarrhoea were few compared with the numbers relative to population in later periods:

England and Wales
Years 1837 (6 mo.) 1838 1839 1840 1841 1842
Deaths from Diarrhoea 2755 2482 2562 3469 3240 5241

There is a break in the annual tabulations of the returns for four years from 1843 to 1846; when they are resumed in 1847, the diarrhoeal death-rate per million living is found to have apparently risen to an enormous height, at which it remained somewhat steady for a whole generation.

Annual average Mortalities per million living from Diarrhoea (and Dysentery).

England and Wales London
1838-42 254 1838-40 274
1847-50 900 1841-50 782
1851-60 918 1851-60 1030
1861-70 968 1861-70 1040
1871-80 917 1871-80 949
1881-90 662 1881-90 749

From year to year the mortality has fluctuated enormously, as in the following list, the rise or fall depending for the most part on the kind of summer: e.g. that of 1893 was hot, and had an excessive mortality from infantile diarrhoea.

1866 18266
1867 20813
1868 30929
1869 20775
1870 26126
1871 24937
1872 23034
1873 22514
1874 21888
1875 24729
1876 22417
1877 15282
1878 25103
1879 11463
1880 30185
1881 14536
1882 17185
1883 15983
1884 26412
1885 13398
1886 24748
1887 20242
1888 12839
1889 18434
1890 17429
1891 13962
1892 15336
1893 28755

These large annual totals stand almost wholly for deaths of infants, according to the following table of rates per million living at the respective ages: