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170
Tasmania the number of deaths in 1855 was 1692 out of a free population
of 62,222, that is, less than 28 per 1000.
The rate in Hobarton was
6 per 1000 more . Counting convicts and all, the rate for the whole
is land was 22 per 1000, or 12 per 1000 (more than 1/ 3 ) less than Hobart
Town . Amongst the convict population the mortality rate was 11 per 1000 .
These are startling facts which cannot be ignored and require
the most serious consideration and searching examination . ....
With these rigidly deduced facts established it cannot be
doubted that there are causes existing within the city of an
entirely local and remediable character, sweeping away
annually a most fearful excess of the citizens .
He reminded the civic body as guardian · · of the citizens
that under the
English Health Act such an excessive mortality would be immediately
invest.igated.
Knowing that their financial resources were limited, he
requested the Council to remove the worst of the city 's nuisances,
particularly the accumu lations of mud and filth above the two dams at
Harrington and Barrack Street Bridges and the heap of slaughter house
mud near the Macquarie Street Bridge;
the Rivulet bed.
achieved.
possibly, too , the boulders from
He suggested means by which these objects might be
In October, the Australian Medical Journal pub lished Part Two
of Hall's article, non the Medical Topography and Vital Statistics of
Hobarton, Tasmanian , in which he discussed the drainage of the city, its
climatology and vital statistics .
However, Hall was disappointed to find
once again that many of his laboriously compiled tables contained
typographical errors whi ch tended to puzzle readers unacquainted with the
facts .
These tables , which revealed his keen interest in meteorology
·and his fruitful partnership with Abbott, were designed to prove that it
was upon the hourly and daily changes of atmospheric phenomena that the
healthiness or othenlise of any climate depended .
revealed two interesting facts -
His vi tal statistics
in Hobarton in 1855, the rate of
illegitimacy was very low , the rate of fecundity very high, due , as he
said, no doubt to the ample spply of the most nutritious food .
Absolute want , or even stinted allowance , is a thing almost
unknown in Tasmania.
This section of the article indicated, too , that Hal l and Abbott realized
that there were o . ther important factors underlying health and disease,
besides the laws of sanitation, which deserved investigation.
Together,
they looked forward keenly to the arrival of a new set of instruments with
which they hoped to conduct experiments on no zone'\ a sub ject very much in
the scientific news at that time.