Upon the close of the winter of 1867-8, a further table was published by him, on the 2d of March, which is given below. In remarking upon the characteristics of the winter, he says: "Although we have had more extreme cold than was experienced this last season, yet its mean temperature was below that of any previous year since 1843-4, and 6 degrees (5.97) below the average of the preceding 24 winters." The following table presents the comparison with each previous winter :

TABLE of Wm. A. Whitehead, Esq.,

With these peculiarities of the past year, we have the associated fact of its healthfulness to an unusual degree. The frequent rains of the spring and summer of 1867, with their consequent abundant vegetation, led to the general apprehension of a sickly autumn and winter. This was not realized. The reporters from all parts of the State attest to a condition of health throughout the year quite remarkable.

All the District Societies have, through their reporters, sent communications to the Standing Committee. The complaint is as general this year, as it has been heretofore, that the members of the District Societies do not personally sympathize with the reporter, and thus render him the aid which he needs in the discharge of his duties. This will doubtless always be the case to a greater or less degree. The Committee suggest to the local societies, that in the selection of reporter they aim to secure the services of those whose zeal for the profe-sion, and whose energy for the promotion of its welfare, are well recognized. Such qualities, associated .in one holding a facile pen, will be apt to secure a regular annual communication. We further suggest, that when the societies find that they have selected a good man, they retain him in the office. He will thereby learn to whom he may apply for material to report, and a sense of responsibility for the credit of his Society. will stimulate him to effort in its behalf. That a renewed interest may be excited in the welfare of the State Society, on the part of the reporters, the Committee suggest an alteration in sec. 1, chap. 1, of the by-laws, providing that the reporters of the District Societies shall be ex-officio members of the delegation to the State Society, and entitled to all the privileges of members, provided they furnish their annual report to the Standing Committee on or before the 1st day of May in each year. Such a provision would, in the opinion of the Committee, render the reporters familiar with the working of the State Society, and grant a privilege of membership in the same, to which a faithful district reporter is entitled. As before stated, a general state of health throughout the State

has been reported:-Scarlatina, Measles, Fever and Pneumonia have prevailed in more or less limited localities. Small-pox, Diphtheria and Cholera have been almost entirely unrecognized.

In Bergen County, Dr. Hasbrouck reports that the year has been singularly free from all forms of epidemic disease. A few cases of broncho-pneumonia in aged subjects proved fatal, but the prevailing diseases, due to ordinary climatic influences, were mild and manageable. In noticing two fatal cases of diphtheria, he remarks upon the tendency of this disease to return at intervals to the same locality, or to the same family. Within the year, at least seven cases, being more than half of all his cases. occurred in four families that had on previous occasions suffered from the disease. In three of these families the disease has occurred twice, and in one, four times within the last few years. Three of the families had continued to reside in the same house; the fourth, in the intervals of the attacks, had removed to another home in the same village. While the cause of such a tendency may be obscure, the Dr. remarks that his observations have impressed him with the belief that in most cases it prevails in those families which live in habitual disregard of sanitary laws, and particularly in those who are habitually exposed to dampness and filth, living upon coarse, bulky and innutritious food, and who sleep in small, confined and crowded bed-rooms. Fevers in Bergen County have been rare-typhoid almost unknown, and all forms of malarious disease, always rare, have been less met with than usual. Scarlatina manifested itself in a mild form, and in a very limited degree, throughout the winter in Hackensack, and was almost entirely confined to the village.

Burlington County, Dr. Coleman reports, as remarkably exempt from serious and wide-spread disease of any kind. Intermittent fever, which has been steadily increasing for several years, seems to have subsided in many places, while in others, it has an abiding foothold. The intermittent type seems to modify all other diseases,

so as to render indispensable the use of the antiperiodic preparations in the treatment.

From Camden County. Dr. Cooper reports no epidemics, and that the ordinary diseases have been few in number, and mild in character, and of short duration. Cholera infantum was very prevalent in Blackwoodtown during the whole summer among very young children. The Doctor remarks that in his observation, the common idea among mothers, that this disease is most frequent and obstinate in the second year, is an error, having seen great numbers of infants who suffered more from affections of the bowels under twelve months of age than during the second year. He alludes to the extraordinary rain fall of the summer, overflowing thereby a large area of cultivated land, and the general expectation in the community, that malarious diseases would ensue; but the expectation was not realized. The county has rarely been so free from remittent and intermittent fevers as during the year 1867-even in those districts heretofore the abode of miasmatic disease.

The facts further stated in his report connected with the generation of miasm, and the subject of drainage, are commended to the notice of the Society.

During the winter, bronchitis and pneumonia were frequent. The latter, he remarks, is one of their most formidable diseases, proving fatal to many whose constitutions are broken down from any cause. It is, for the most part, of an asthenic form, calling for sustaining measures, and rarely admitting depletion. The reporter recognizes a change in the degree of phlogosis in this disease, and in pleuritis, which strongly contrasts with that of former years.

Cumberland County, which in the summer and autumn of 1866, was scourged by cholera, has not been visited during the past year. Only four cases, two fatal, have occurred. The choleraic influence seems to have manifested itself, but proved very amenable to treatment. Intermittent fever has proved very unyielding

in this county during the year, being very liable to return again and again, after the poison producing the disease was supposed to be eradicated. An epidemic of scarlatina has prevailed in Bridgeton of a very mild character, requiring little professional attention. In the town of Millville, ten miles from Bridgeton, the disease has been epidemic in a fearfully malignant form. It was wide-spread and very fatal among children. A physician of the town in describing the epidemic says, "with the commencement of the disease, we had generally a local congestion of some vital part, as the brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, &c. To give a perfect idea of the disease, would render it necessary to describe each case, as scarcely any two were alike." Over seventy cases came to the notice of the physician alluded to.

An epidemic of measles prevailed in Cedarville during June and July. Its peculiar feature was the number of adults affected by it. In many cases, the inflammation of the bronchiæ and lungs was an alarming concomitant. Pertussis, and a mild but very general endemic of influenza, is also noticed by Dr. Bateman, the reporter, as occuring, the former in Dividing Creek, and the latter in Cedarville during the Winter.

Dr. Jobs, of Essex County, notices the appearance of scarlatina in a mild form in the western portion of the county, and remarks that it was rather sporadic than epidemic. Families remote from each other being simultaneously or consecutively attacked, the disease confining itself to the family or portion of the family attacked. In one instance one case occurred in a family of seven children and extended no further. None of the cases seemed to favor the idea of its communicability. He remarks upon the use of the bisulphate of soda as seeming to possess efficacy in neutralizing the poison. One case in which a disposition to suppuration about the eyes was manifested, with a tendency to disorganization of tissue, seemed changed in the diathesis, resolving it into a case of simple debility.

The reporter for Essex complains—as he has just cause to do