This return contains the numbers of admissions to, deaths and discharges from, the civil hospital, during the last six years, of the creoles and Indians, which may be taken to represent the aboriginal population of this island, although few, except the creoles, are really natives. It will be seen that the rate of deaths is very large, and this, without explanation, might give rise to false inference as to the healthfulness of the island. The general death rate of the Indians throughout the island for 1859 was 25 per 1,000, or only 2 per 1,000 above that of all England for 1858; and, when it is considered that all, or almost all, the Indians are agricultural labourers or servants, and from the nature of their labour much exposed to casualties, such a death rate points to Mauritius as (what it is) an exceedingly healthy locality. Why then so large a mortality as 22 per cent. in the civil hospital? The answer is readily given by the fact that the same prejudice against hospitals exists among the Indians and creoles here as among the poorer classes in England, but in an exaggerated degree, and consequently that a very large proportion of absolutely hopeless cases are admitted; so much is this the case, that in 1860, out of 696 deaths, no less than 108 died within 24 hours after admission, and nearly one-half of the deaths occurred within the first week. In this return two epidemics of cholera are included; one of very severe character in 1856, and a smaller one in 1859, which carried off above 306 patients. The most fatal diseases, it will be seen, are dysentery, diarrhœa, phthisis, dropsy, and fever. The greater number of the cases of dysentery admitted are old worn-out cases in the last stage of emaciation, filth, and misery; many of them abandoned by their friends, picked up by the police, and brought into hospital to die. The greater part of the cases entered as diarrhœa in former years were undoubtedly either dysentery or phthisis; the latter is as prevalent (if not more so) among all classes of inhabitants as in England. The cases of dropsy depend on the same causes as in Europe, but many cases are seen which present scarcely any morbid change in any of the organs. Fever is of very low type, and true typhus and typhoid are not unfrequent. Although many of the Indians and creoles are habitual drunkards, cases of delirium tremens are very rare. Leprosy is a frequent and fearful disease among creoles and Indians, but the frequency is not shown in the return, as, until {66} lately, all the cases of leprosy were sent to a ward for that purpose in the lunatic asylum. This disease rarely occurs among Europeans arrived from Europe, it is more frequent among creoles of European parents born in the island, and very much more so among the mixed African race and the Indians. Tetanus, both traumatic and idiopathic, occurs very much more frequently than in Europe. P. B. AYRES, M.D. Lond., Surgeon in charge.