* District of Columbia has 114,000 white, 56,000 colored; deaths, 36 white, 35 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 16.5; colored, 32.6. Norfolk has 14,087 white, 9,913 colored; deaths, 4 white, 4 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 14.8; colored, 21.0. Charleston has 25,000 white, 32,000 colored; deaths, 6 white, 9 colored. Rate per 1.000, white, 12.5; colored, 14.7. Savannah has 17,493 white, 15, 163 colored; deaths, 9 white, 12 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 26.8; colored, 41.3. Augusta has 15,246 white, 11,628 colored; deaths, 6 white, 11 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 20.5; colored, 49.4. Atlanta has 25,373 white, 16,175 colored; deaths, 5 white, 7 colored. Rate per 1.000, white, 10.3; colored, 22.6. New Orleans has 155,000 white, 55,000 colored; deaths, 65 white, 31 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 21.9; colored, 29.4. Nashville has 17.585 white, 9,500 colored; deaths, 6 white 2 colored. Rate per 1,000, white, 17.8; colored, 11.0. The deaths from small-pox were among Mexicans. The following reports, for the week ending October 25, are from places requiring burial permits, and having less than 5,000 population: Bridgewater, Mass., population 3,900; no deaths. Brunswick, Ga., 3,000; consumption, 1; diarrhea, 1; total deaths, 3; under 5 years, 2. Edgartown, Mass., 1,700; one death. Franklin, Tenn., 1,800; one death. Franklin, Ind., 1,400; diarrhoea, 1. Murfreesborough, Tenn., 4,000; one death. The following reports, for the week ending October 25, are from places in which burial permits are not required: Allegheny, Pa., population 75,000; deaths, 21; under 5 years, 10; consumption, 3; diphtheria, 9; lung diseases, 3; typhoid fever, 1. Bath, Me., 10,000; deaths, 2; consumption, 1. Battle Creek, Mich., 7,500; one death, accident. Belfast, Me., 5,278; no deaths. Carrollton, Miss., 600; no deaths. Davenport, Iowa, 25,000; deaths, ; under 5 years, 2; diphtheria, 2; measles, 2; typhoid fever, 1; pneumonia, 1. Decatur, Miss., 1,000; no deaths. Dixon, Cal., 1,200; no deaths. Greenwood, Miss., 400; no deaths. Jackson, Miss., 5,000; old age, 1. Lansing, Mich., 10,000; typhoid fever, 1. Louisiana, Mo., 5,000; deaths, 2; typhoid fever, 1. Mansfield, Ohio, 11,000; one death. Monmouth, Ill., 6,000; consumption, 1; diarrhea, 1; deaths, 3; under 5 years, 1. Monroe, Mich., 5, 46; consumption, 1. Morton, Miss., 200; no deaths. Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 5,000; one death. Niles, Mich., 4.630; consumption, 1. Painesville, Ohio, 5,000; consumption, 1. Pass Christian, Miss., 4,000; no deaths. Ripley, Miss., 1.000; no deaths. Shelbyville, Tenn., 2000; no deaths. Starkville, Miss., 1,163; no deaths. Tampa, Fla., 1,000; no deaths. Tuscaloosa, Ala., 4,000; deaths, 2; under 5 years, 1; pneumonia, 1; typhoid fever, 1. Waterbury, Conn., 16,000; deaths, 4; pneumonia, 1. Winona, Minn., 11,786; no deaths. Youngstown, Ohio, 17,000; deaths, 4: croup, 1, under 5 years. CONSULAR FEES. THE attention of consuls, consular agents, &c., is respectfully called to the following letter of the Hon. H. F. French, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, addressed to the President of the National Board of Health: This department is in receipt of your letter of the 14th ultimo, in which, by direction of the executive committee of your Board, you inclose a copy of a communication from Mr. A. B. Wood, chief of the consular bureau of the State Department, accompanied by a printed copy of rules and regulations, made by your Board and approved by the President, to be used and complied with by vessels in foreign ports, under the authority of the act approved June 2, 1879. The object of submitting these rules and regulations appears to be to secure action on the part of this department in fixing fees for certain services therein required. An examination of the act in question shows that the only fee which the statute requires in terms to be fixed by this department is that under section 6, in connection with the necessary expenses in placing vessels in proper sanitary condition. Under this section the regulations provide that the consular officers in foreign ports shall, upon the request of the owner, agent, or master, cause an inspection of every ship or vessel bound to any port of the United States, and upon such inspection issue the bill of health required by these regulations. In regard to this fee, it may be stated that section 1745 of the Revised Statutes directs that the President shall prescribe from time to time the rates or tariffs of fees to be charged for the official service of consular officers abroad. Under the authority of this section, the President has fixed, and the State Department promulgated in its regulations of 1874, p. 78, a consular fee for a bill of health at $2.50. This fee is to be exacted by the consul and by him paid into the Treasury as part of the receipts of his office; and it would not seem that a second fee is necessary for the bill of health required to be given by the regulations issued by the Board, except that in cases arising under paragraph 12 of the said regulations, where the departure of the vessel is delayed beyond the twenty-four hours therein specified, an addition to such fee of 50 per cent. may properly be made. The regular fee for the bill of health is therefore fixed at $2.50. The actual expenses incurred in placing the vessel in proper sanitary condition will, of course, vary with the circumstances of each case, and are to be paid by the ship-owners or masters; and it would not seem that ABSTRACTS FROM CONSULAR REPORTS. LISBON, PORTUGAL.-The Department of State transmits to the National Board of Health a letter from H. W. Diman, United States consul, inclosing a copy and translation of an official decree removing the quarantine established July 31 against certain Atlantic ports of the United States. Mr. Diman states that since July 31 thirty vessels, arriving from New Orleans and ports of the Gulf of Mexico, have been quarantined from five to eight days at Lisbon. Ten of these vessels were bound to Oporto, and touching there first, were sent a distance of about 200 miles to perform the above-named quarantine, discharge a part of cargo, submit to fumigation, &c. It is stated that no vessel ordered away from Oporto has returned to that place within fifteen days. Considering that all these vessels left perfectly healthy ports, and that all had clean bills of health from the Portuguese consuls at those ports, the complaints of the masters and owners seem to have been well grounded. The consul is convinced of the importance of some effective international plan for reforming the present oppressive system of quarantine. The decree, as published in the Diario de Governo, of September 29, is as follows: From official information and from the report of the consulting board of health, the Atlantic ports of the United States of America are hereby declared free of yellow feyer from and after the 3d of August last. The ports of Memphis and New Orleans are still considered as infected, and all other ports of the Gulf of Mexico, whether belonging to the United States or not, as suspected. Ministry of the Interior. LUIZ ANTONIO NOGUIERA. GUADALOUPE.-United States Consul Charles Bartlett, sends the following communication to the National Board of Health: Pointe à Petre is situated on the westernmost part of that portion of Guadaloupe named Grande Terre, and is the principal port and mercantile emporium of Guadaloupe. It is built on low, marshy ground. Around the city proper has been dug a canal, named Canal Vatable, in honor of the governor under whose administration it was dug. The ebb and flow of the tide in the harbor, never exceeding one foot and a half, causes the water in this canal to remain stagnant and to exhale a very offensive stench, making its neighborhood very unhealthy. The land beyond this canal is low and boggy and almost always overflowed from the drainings of surrounding hillocks, and more especially so during the rainy season. The mayoralty, nevertheless, in view to fill up these bogs, has carts which daily take the garbage and other cleanings from the city proper to these places; these cleanings, being mostly of a vegetable nature, thrown into and rotting in these small swamps, generate effluvia which I consider deleterious; so much so that I have noticed that at least three-fourths of the deaths on record occur in that neighborhood. The city proper, I must state, is more healthy, and was, in past years, filled up with stones and earth. The streets are all macadamized and are carefully and continually kept under repairs; are very dry, are swept every morning, their gutters washed and cleaned, and all the offal which is ordered to be deposited in front of each tenement taken away by the town carts to these bogs or swamps. All the household excrements of the city are taken away morning and evening to the quays and thrown into the harbor. This improper usage is assuredly conducive to unhealthiness, as the smell arising therefrom is very offen sive. In the vicinity of the canal and close by the swamps reside the poorer class of people, and they are mostly sufferers from malarial fever, bilious and remittent fevers. I am, however, assured that there are no contagious or epidemic diseases here, having closely watched the sanitary state of the island under the impression that I might be called upon to report thereon. Whenever any one is questioned as to the cause of death, the invariable answer is: from fever, either bilious or intermittent. I myself have had fever twice during my stay of nearly 15 months here, but the spells were of short duration. Quinine, refreshing beverages, and, above all, a tour of four days to Matonba, restored me completely. Matonba is the resort during the sickly season of the better sort of people who can afford to go there, the most of them owning a villa there. This Matonba is situated in Guadaloupe proper, high up on the western slopes of a high range of mountains, over which towers the highest, named "Soufriere," a volcano not yet extinct. Below Matonba, and in the same commune of St. Claude, the government has erected fine buildings, barracks, hospitals, and a residence for the governor, where, on account of the salubrity of the air, he mostly resides. The garrison, at the approach of the hurricane months, or warm season, is sent to this place, only retaining in the towns those required for service, but alternately removing them to and from this place, called Camp Jacob, formed under the governorship of General Jacob, at an altitude of nearly nine hundred meters (2,953 feet) above the level of the sea. TOKEI, JAPAN.-United States Minister Hon. John A. Bingham sends the following communication to the Department of State under date of September 13: HAVANA, CUBA.-Advices to October 25 state that there were 13 deaths from yellow fever in the city during the week ending October 24. Number of cases remaining estimated at 40; the mortality in proportion to the number of cases has been small during the month of October, a result ascribed to uniformity of temperature. By the published returns it appears that from the 22d of April to the 6th of September, 1879, there have been 126,145 cases of cholera and 68,336 deaths; at this date 40,449 persons are reported as still suffering with the disease. Cholera never appeared in Japan before the year 1716, and it recurred in 1850, 1877, 1878, and 1879. The foreign traders here were therefore wrong in asserting that the disease was one originating in the country, occurring here every year, and in opposing and denying the authority of this government to estab-provement in the general health of this place and its de lish a quarantine. This country has never suffered so severely from any other disease as from Asiatic cholera on each occasion of its appearance. The opposition of the foreign traders to quarantine measures has been weakened by the recent death of six of their number in Yokohama, and by the fact that no foreigner attacked by the disease has survived. His excellency Mr. Ito, minister of the home department, regards the pestilence as subsiding, and will furnish full returns concerning it. Permit me to say, that your instructions of last year, approving my action at that time in asserting the right of this government to enforce a quarantine against the importation of this pestilence under our flag, have, I have reason to say, greatly impressed the emperor and people, and given them a new assurance of the good will of our government. BOMBAY, INDIA.-United States Consul B. F. Farnham sends a report for the first three months of 1879. There were 5,855 deaths, 3,357 births, and 227 still-born. The deaths from small-pox were 163; measles, 28; diphtheria, 3; croup, 16; whooping cough, 18; typhoid fever, 1; cholera, 50; diarrhoea, 312; dysentery, 452; malarial fevers, 2,109; mean humidity, 68; mean temperature, 77.6. The population is not given. PORT AU PRINCE, HAYTI.-Under date of October 6, Consul A. Bird writes that there has been a marked im pendencies, excepting a report (not official) of an outbreak of yellow fever at Cape Haytien. Good health prevails, according to official reports, at Miragoâne, Petit Goâve, Jérémie, Aux Cayes, Jacmel, St. Marc, and Port de Paix. SANTA MARTHA, UNITED STATES OF COLOMBIA.United States Consular Agent T. Huysman reports as follows, October 6: The steamer Alra, Williams, master, arrived at this port September 27, from Liverpool, and left the next day for New York, while this port is infected with yellow and typhoid fevers. The popula tion of Santa Martha is about 2,250; the deaths, as far as I can judge, are from 35 to 40 per week, but as the dead are buried at all hours of the night and day, it is not possible to obtain an exact account. One for their health; they lost 25 men in 14 days. There are few forcompany of Colombian troops were sent to Gairo, 9 miles distant, eigners in the place; the natives are idle and unclean in their habits, and seem to rely on dogs and hogs to act as scavengers. Pools of stagnant water exist in and around the city, but the water supply, from the river Mansanares, is very good. GHENT, BELGIUM.-United States Vice-Consul Lefebvre reports, for BUDA PESTH, HUNGARY.-In the report of mortality the month of September, 1879, 344 deaths and 14 still-births, in a popufor the week ending September 27, Consul E. J. Ball notes lation estimated at 130,100, giving an annual rate of 31.7 per 1,000. that of 192 deaths in a population of 309,700, 101 were The deaths include 167 males, 177 females; 208 under 6 years; 3 from 6 to 10; 6 from 10 to 15; 19 from 15 to 30; 22 from 30 to 50; 46 from under 5 years of age; the mortality among children is in 50 to 70; 40 over 70. Legitimate births, 354; 182 male and 172 great part caused by diarrheal diseases, due to bad qual-female. Illegitimate, 44; male, 16; female, 28; total births, 398. ity of the water used. There were 64 marriages and 1 divorce. GUAYAQUIL, ECUADOR.-United States Consul Alex. McLean sends the following additional report on the prevalence of small-pox: Since the government obtained a supply of virus, the school children have been generally vaccinated; but no effort has been made to prevent people from crowding to the funerals of those who die of small-pox, nor are infected houses fumigated. Official mortuary returns are not made here, but from conversation with physicians I think there are not over 20 cases now in the city, and the disease is decreasing. There are about 400 patients in the hospitals, but no contagious disease, other than small-pox, exists here at present. Malarial fevers and dysentery are the prevailing diseases. ABSTRACTS OF SANITARY INSPECTORS' REPORTS. SMALL-POX IN SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS.-Inspector Dr. JOHN H. POPE reports, October 26, 1879, as follows on the recent outbreak of small-pox in this place: doubtless by this time there is plenty of new fuel for the disease to feed upon. If our new Board of Health can control yellow fever within special localities at or near where it originates, as has been done in and about Memphis this season, why not keep out altogether this disease, which in all probability will have to be imported to gain another foot-hold in the United States? If any cases exist or arise in any of our cities, doubtless the National Board of Health is the proper authority to be made aware of the fact, and it should, I think, in conjunction and accord with local boards, be made aware of, follow up, and keep upon the track of every case; and whenever and wherever a case is developed, see that it is at once placed in a hospital, the locality of its discovery and tracings disinfected, the infected clothing burned, and all exposed persons vaccinated with reliable cow-pox virus, and then properly watched by the local medical inspector of the district. Prevention of these contagious diseases is the proper mode of dealing with them, and when our government and the authorities of other nations wake up to the importance of an international code of quarantine laws, and by mutual consent establish rigid rules whereby epidemics and contagious diseases, as far as possible, are held from spreading beyond their place of origin, then we will be far on the road toward preventing these epidemics, and may be able to accomplish what I have for years advocated, the complete annihilation of some of the pestilential disorders. SAVANNAH, GA.-Dr. J. C. Le Hardy writes as follows, October 22: It is difficult to ascertain exactly the number of cases in the city. No "house to house" inspection has been made. In some instances the first time the case was reported was when the burial permit was asked for. It seems to be a difficult matter-indeed impossible-to induce the Mexicans to report small-pox or other disease existing in their families. Sometimes, for fear they will be found, parents will secretly take their children, who have small-pox, and hide them at The city of Savannah is built on a sandy plain, some 14 miles another jocale, until they recover or die. This has been the means of northwest from the Atlantic Ocean, extending more than one mile spreading the disease during this year, in at least one instance. Vac-along the south bank of the river and rising from 40 to 50 feet above cination of all the population has not been accomplished. The low-water mark. This plain extends southward a distance of several city has liberally provided virus, to place it within reach of all the miles. The city limits are comprised in a radius of about 1 miles paupers. The city physician has advertised that he would, without from the center of the river front. On the north runs the ship charge, vaccinate all who would come to him. Besides this the prac- channel of the Savannah River, some 200 yards wide, beyond which ticing physicians have used all their influence to induce their patrons are islands, formerly cypress swamps, subject to overflow by spring to have their families vaccinated. But by all these means not more tides, where they are not in cultivation or banked in. East and west than half the people have been vaccinated and revaccinated; only a are low lands, also subject to overflow by the tides, but now prosmall proportion of the Mexicans have been vaccinated. They have tected by embankments and kept very well drained by the city no faith in its efficacy, and oppose it as useless. From the best of authorities since our last epidemic of yellow fever in 1876. The wellmy information I am led to believe that the partial vaccination re- water bed lies between 20 and 25 feet below the surface, and furnishes sorted to has had more influence than any one thing in checking the a very clear but not very wholesome drink. Beyond the city limits spread of the disease. Wherever isolation has been properly prac- to the southeast, south, southwest, west, and northwest are found ticed the result has been entirely satisfactory. numerous swamps, ponds, and bogs, some of which are cultivated in The city physician's mortuary report shows for the month, extend- rice, others are not cultivated and subject to the action of the sun, ing from August 26 to September 26: deaths from all causes 42; from while the remainder are protected by the natural forest growth. small-pox 18. For the month ending October 26, the deaths from all Of these the Teynac Swamp southeast, some ponds south, the Springcauses were 43; from small-pox 16. field plantation and Musgrove Creek west, have been drained (as far as could be done) by a commission appointed under the authority of the State legislature in 1877, but the work of this commission, of so great importance to the health of the city, has been stopped for want of the necessary funds to complete it. The drainage, so far as it has been accomplished, has, however, produced a remarkable effect on the health of the citizens, and the statement that "the physicians do not see one case of malarial fever now where some years ago they would have seen twenty," will be borne out, I believe, by every one who has been engaged in the practice of medicine here for the last fifteen years. JEFFERSON, TEX.-Inspector Dr. A. P. Brown reports, October 25, that there had been two frosts to date, but malarial fevers were very prevalent in that region. FOREST CITY, ARK.-Inspector J. B. Cummings says, under date of October 29, that no new cases of yellow fever have appeared at this place for five days; he deems it safe to raise the quarantine and allow people to return to their houses, provided proper measures are taken to disinfect them. During the last summer we enjoyed almost an entire exemption from malarial fevers; this, of course, is in great part due to the dry weather. Since the rains have set in, only those whose business car REPORTS OF CORRESPONDENTS OF THE NATIONAL BOARD ries them outside of the city into malarial districts, or those staying OF HEALTH. SMALL-POX. PREVENTION OF ITS INTRODUCTION INTO UNINFECTED CITIES. Dr. BUSHROD W. JAMES, of Philadelphia, writes as follows: late at night on the river front, subject to the influence of the marshy In looking over the BULLETIN of the National Board of Health, I The mortality reports show the malady to be prevalent in New Brunswick, in Canada (Montreal), Cuba (Havana), Brazil (Pernambuco), England (London), France, &c. Now that our cities are free from this one disease why can we not keep it out? Why should we risk another such epidemic of it as occurred at Washington, Philadelphia, New York, Boston and other cities a few years ago? for Ever since the completion of our sewer system, with water-closet connection, a marked change has taken place in the type of our diseases. Typhoid fever, hithereto unknown in this city, now occurs frequently; continued fevers are common, and cholera infantum, diphtheria, and scarlet fever have become endemic. ATLANTA, GA., October 15, 1879.-Dr. Jas. B. Baird writes as follows: Atlanta, the capital of Georgia, is situated upon a ridge, the natural dividing line between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mex |