173
of the Medical Officer of Health on the Health of the
Colony furnished to the Sanitary Board and of the "Medical
Report on the Health and Sanitary Condition of the Colony"
drawn up in accordance with the instructions contained in
Mr. Chamberlain's Circular Despatch of the 25th. July,
1898. The General Report follows generally the lines of
the model report enclosed in that Despatch; it will, how-
-ever, be made to correspond more closely in future years.
By the above rearrangement and by some compression of and
avoidance of repetition in the reports of individual
Medical Officers the bulk of the Medical Reports has been
reduced from 203 pages in 1904 to 140 in 1905, but I am
not yet satisfied that some further compression especially
in the scientific as distinct from the administrative
parts of the documents would not be an improvement and I
should be much obliged by Sir Patrick Manson being asked
to comment freely on the value of the scientific matter in
the reports and on the manner in which it is presented.
3.
The deaths registered during the
year number 6,594, a rate of 17.45 per 1,000 which is
lower than the rate recorded for any previous year except
for 1904 when it was 16.94. The latest corresponding
figures