In Manchester there were causes of fever independently of the Irish contagion. The registrar of the Deangate sub-district writes in the third quarter of 1847: “In the calamitous season just passed, manufactures have been almost at a stand-still; food has been unattainable by the poor, for employment they had none; Famine made her dwelling in their homes &c.” The hardships of the children caused an immense mortality from summer diarrhoea. The same registrar gives an account of the epidemic fever in his report for the second quarter of 1847, from which it appears that, although nearly all the hospital cases were distinctly maculated, and the fever was undoubtedly typhus in all other respects and in its conditions, yet tympanitis, with abdominal tenderness and diarrhoea, were specially noted[393]. Besides Liverpool and Manchester, many other towns in Lancashire had the “Irish fever” in them; also Birmingham, Dudley, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury, Leeds, Hull, York and Sunderland. Except in London, the fever mortality was not unusual in the southern half of England[394]. In Scotland the epidemic was a mixture of relapsing fever and typhus. The following were the proportions of each admitted to the Glasgow Royal Infirmary: Year Relapsing Fever Typhus 1846 777 500 1847 2,333 2,399 1848 513 980 1849 168 342 In the Barony Fever Hospital, Glasgow, open from 5 August 1847 to July 1848, the relapsing cases were double the typhus cases at the opening of the hospital, at the end of 1847 they were nearly equal, and from February 1848 the typhus cases were double the relapsing. In Edinburgh, where the epidemic was less severe, the same relations were observed--relapsing fever most at the beginning, typhus fever (much more fatal) most at the end[395]. Some relapsing fever occurred also in London, among destitute Irish, which was often attended by a miliary eruption (Ormerod). Subsequent Epidemics of Typhus and Relapsing Fevers. By midsummer, 1848, there was a most marked improvement in the public health, corresponding with the great fall in the prices of food, under the influence of free trade, and with a good harvest and the commencement of an era of steady employment for workers. The improvement is strikingly shown in the following comparison of the deaths from all causes in Lancashire and Cheshire in the third quarter of each of the years 1846, 1847 and 1848: 1846 1847 1848 Deaths in the 3rd Quarter 15,221 17,080 11,720