In the last quarter of 1846, the deaths from fever in London had been 619. In all England, the last quarter of 1846 was also most unhealthy, its deaths from all causes being 53,055 (only 43,850 in the first quarter of the year). The summer of 1846 had been remarkable for heat and drought, and the end of the year was, according to precedent, an unwholesome time. It was just the season for enteric fever, as in the still more memorable circumstances of 1826. There is evidence from various parts of England and Scotland that much of the fever of the end of 1846 was enteric; and it was doubtless the unusual prevalence of that disease, and of other maladies that are favoured, like it, by extreme fluctuations of the ground-water, that explains the very high mortality of the last quarter of 1846[390]. But it is equally certain that it was typhus which raised the fever deaths in London in the last quarter of 1847 to 1,279, and the deaths from all causes in all England to the enormous total of 57,925. In the whole of the year 1847, typhus alone claimed 30,320 deaths in England and Wales, the total in 1848 falling to 21,406. Lancashire and Cheshire had the largest share of this epidemic, and Liverpool the largest share in Lancashire. In that Registration Division (the North-western) the deaths from typhus in 1847 were 9,076, and in 1848 they were 3,380. Next in order (excluding London and suburbs) came the West Midland Division, and next to that Yorkshire. At Liverpool, and in other places of the north-west of England, the fever was very clearly connected with the enormous Irish immigration, and was in great part among the Irish. There were floating lazarettos on the Mersey, filled with fever and dysentery, workhouses overflowing, and sheds hastily built to hold each 300 patients. The following returns from the several sub-divisions of Liverpool for the months of July, August and September, 1847, show the proportions of dysentery and fever, as well as the mortality from diarrhoea, which last was mostly an affair of the infants and young children[391]: _Liverpool deaths, July-Sept. 1847._ Fever Dysentery Diarrhoea St Martin’s 291 82 174 Dale Street 250 20 111 St Thomas (301 deaths on the floating lazarettos) Mount Pleasant 324 18 73 Islington 105 37 78 Great Howard Street (the fever extending to the upper classes) In his report for the quarter before (April, May and June, 1847) the registrar of the Great Howard Street sub-district says: “Eight Roman Catholic priests, and one clergyman of the Church of England, have fallen victims to their indefatigable attentions to the poor of their church[392].”