CO129-334 - Governor Nathan - 1906 [5-7] — Page 177

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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