The Health of Calcutta in 1878

fluctuation of a tolerably constant character. This fluctuation signifies etiologically. an orderly succession of conditions causing sickness and death -which may be considered normal to the place and population, and violent departures from which may be accounted abnormal and due to exceptional circumstances. Dr. Payne has experienced two sources of difficulty in determining the ordinary mortality of Calcutta. In the first place mortuary records of the period antecedent to the execution of sundry sanitary reforms, more especially improved drainage and the introduction of a supply of pure water, are unreliable and unreliable by defect. It is therefore impossible to arrive at