“From the facts before mentioned, I am led to conclude that the decomposition constantly going on in these small pools is the source of the malaria, and that the malaria so engendered propagates fever. 1st. Because there are cases of fever in this locality nearly all the year. 2d. Because paupers, and persons who are better fed, and live in more comfortable and better ventilated houses in the neighbourhood of this green or common, are attacked with the disease, and, I may say, almost indiscriminately. 3d. Because during the years I have attended the paupers of the district, there has scarcely been a case of fever in the winter season when the pools are overflowed, and the atmosphere is colder, and consequently unfavourable to fermentation and decomposition. In my opinion the only method to remedy this evil would be to drain the common, which is small, and its situation being elevated, would greatly facilitate its drainage. The condition of a few of the smaller and more confined of the tenements might be greatly improved.” _Mr. L. Reynolds_, one of the medical officers of the Dore union, thus describes in his report the district where some fever cases occurred:— “Of those cases the six first have occurred on Colston Common, a small marshy spot, never drained, and containing several pools extremely unhealthy, from decaying vegetables that never are removed. This year the same families have been again attacked, and shall be so every year till that nuisance be removed. In a medical point of view, such commons are injurious, and they are extremely expensive to the unions, for they cause fever, asthma, and rheumatism, from their incipient moisture, thus injuring the labouring classes, and heavily taxing the parish. “The four next have occurred at a place called Toad Ditch: it well deserves the name; it is a collection of badly-built houses, rendered unhealthy from the large ditch, into which every kind of refuse is poured; the removal of that nuisance is imperatively called for. All these houses have one privy in common, but the ditch is the place generally used. “This district would be much served by enclosing and draining Colston Commons, by keeping the sewers at Kingston clean, and by draining the ditch at Toad Ditch. These are the only removable nuisances of which I have any knowledge.” _Mr. Blick_, medical officer of the Bicester union, describes the prevalence of typhus:— “This disease has been very prevalent in this district during the past year, indeed we are never free from it. I think its origin may be traced, in most instances, to a constant exposure to an atmosphere loaded with malaria, and propagated, in the second place, by contagion, so little attention being paid to prevent its diffusion.