GENERAL REMARKS.

Let

Thus have we completed our memoranda for the year. us now briefly recapitulate some of the most prominent events and facts.

1. The winter was remarkably mild, the spring unusually cold, with frost in May, the summer extraordinarily hot and dry, presenting the customary rainy season in June and July, but less rain than usual,-the autumn dry and pleasant.

2. Since the reürganization of the Board of Health, in the spring, under the law passed in April, more than ordinary attention has been paid to cleansing the city, but there is still much room for improvement.

3. The river was high in January, and continued to rise till it reached an almost unprecedented height, but owing to a great crevasse that occurred at Bonnet Carré, forty miles above the city, and on the same side, so great a quantity of water was let off into Lake Pontchartrain as to prevent the rise from being so high at the city as it was last year. A scientific river-survey was conducted during the summer, by a committee appointed by the legislature, the results of which will be given in another place.

4. Among the most interesting points relative to the prevalent diseases of the year, I may mention that a few sporadic cases of yellow fever were seen at the Charity Hospital in January, February and March, that the fevers of the summer and autumn were unusually mild, and that cholera prevailed throughout the year, increasing to an epidemic extent in March and November. This disease has caused fewer deaths by half this year than last, the numbers being 3,285 for 1849, and 1,517 for 1850, including cholera morbus and omitting cholera infantum. The mortality of the city has not been so large, as will be shown by the annual report of the Board of Health.

Some discrepancy will appear between the monthly mortality mentioned on several occasions in this journal, and that stated in the annual report of the Board of Health, which is to follow. I can only say that my data were furnished by the weekly reports. of the Board.

As stated in the beginning, this journal is published almost verbatim as it was kept.

4

Maximum. Minimum Average. Maximum Minimum. Average.

Pluviometer.

QUANTITY
OF RAIN,
in Inches and
1000ths.

The THERMOMETER is marked four times a-day- - at Sunrise, 9 A. M., 3 P. M., clouds, force, direction and nomenclature, and amount of the heavens clear or otherwise, of the Rain-when it began and ended, as well as quantity; Thermometer in sun, as well

NEW ORLEANS.- By E. H. BARTON, A.M., M.D.

Sunrise Midday 9 P.M. Average Sunrise Midday. 9 P.M. Average Sunrise Midday. 9 P. M. Average.

and at 9 P.M., and so of the BAROMETER: WINDS, force and direction; Aspect of Sky— from 0 to 10; HYGROMETER at Sunrise, Midday, and 9 P. M., and various other particulars; as exposed to radiation at night, etc., not required to be enumerated here.

ARTICLE II.

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE NEW ORLEANS AND LAFAYETTE BOARD OF HEALTH, FOR THE YEAR 1850.

It cannot but be painful, year after year, to have to allude to the same facts, to make the same statements, and to give the same advice, which is nothing more nor less than the careful embodiment of the accumulated results of the experience of the civilized world, in relation to the known causes of disease, and the means of their mitigation or removal. We say painful, because we meet with comparatively so little cooperation on the part of municipal authorities. We must, in justice, except our worthy mayor, who is ex-officio president of the Board of Health. He has always expressed great solicitude for the welfare of the city, and seconded, to the utmost of his ability, the suggestions, deliberations and decisions of the Board, when sanitary measures have been devised and recommended, important not only to the health and lives of our citizens, but to the commercial prosperity of the city.

The Committee appointed by the Board of Health to draw up the annual report have, however, no disposition or intention to shrink from or omit one iota of the duty assigned them. They know the power of truth, and that ultimately it must and will prevail. They know that iron and steel can, by repeated blows, be fashioned by the skilful artificer into any form or shape he may desire. They are aware, too, that drop after drop of water impinging upon the most solid rock, will, in the course of time, perforate it, and leave an indelible impression. And having these and abundant other kindred analogies before them, they are firmly convinced that similar results must sooner or later become manifest, from persevering efforts in cases or instances where the mind and human action are concerned.

THE UNKNOWN.

One of the strongest proofs of high civilization is the estimation in which human life is held by municipal law.

We do not allude to those criminal laws in Europe which are

so fearfully scrutinizing, terribly persevering, and sternly inflexible, when it is known that a citizen has been deprived of life by unfair means, but to those stringent laws which compel all the parties concerned or implicated to account for the decease of an individual; that is, to determine, by all possible evidence of which the case admits, whether the death in question is natural, or has been caused by some specified disease, or whether it was the result of murderous intent.

This, then, is the first great principle-that no one shall be buried unless the authorities and the public can be fully satisfied as to the cause of death. And the second one is, the extreme attention and care devoted to the subject of hygiène, and the rigid adoption of all the means known by experience to be the best calculated to ward off or favorably modify the disease.

Where such feelings animate the public, they cannot but be infused into councils and corporations. And these being impelled by public opinion to energetic and enlightened action and cooperation with the Board of Health, the labors of that body, with the assistance of health-wardens and commissaries, would be comparatively easy and pleasant; and the result of their counsel and action would soon be realized by the public.

We are at a loss to decide which of these two great objects is of most importance. On one hand, there is the jealous protection of human life from lawless violence or stealthy destruction, in which the eternal and immutable principles of truth and justice are concerned; and on the other, the prosperity of this great commercial city.

Rapid as has been the progress, and great the prosperity of this city, what would it have been had not the fear of yellow fever proved the cause of the annual abstraction of probably one-third of the most enterprising, active, intelligent and wealthy part of the community? It is not only the temporary suspension of business that should be considered, but the vast sums of money that every year are expended at the North or in Europe, aiding and abetting, and comforting comparative strangers with the very means that should be employed in cherishing and developing the mechanical skill, and industry and welfare of our own citizens.