during the cold season of the year, especially towards the end
of the winter. Next to these come acute affections o f the bowels
(about 12 per cent). These belong especially to the warm season
and appear to be in a certain ratio to the temperature and the
rainfall. Inflammation o f the lungs occurs all through the year
(about 6 per cent of the total number of cases of sickness), but
especially m the spring months. Since 1889/90, influenza has appeared
annually in an epidemic form, generally beginning with the
new year, culminating about 2 months later, and disappearing in
the summer. From 20,000 to 50,000 cases have been reported annually.
Of all the epidemic diseases, measles shows the greatest
variations. While there were only 52 persons attacked in 1884/ we
have had three great epidemics during the period from T881 to
1895 with from 12,000 to 17,000 cases in a single year. Scarlet
fever shows less variation from year to year, and, during the
same 15 years, has varied from 10,911 cases in 1886, to 2,925
m. 1892. Whooping-cough appears as an epidemic almost every
year. The number of cases reported has varied between 3,106
and 10,110 annually. Diphtheria and croujp are of far greater’importance,
the number of cases -having risen from about 15,000
(1500 annually) during the period from 1871 to 1880, to more 'than
25,000 in the years 1881-gl885 (5000 annually),, and 69,000 in
1886—1895 (6900 annually). There has been some decrease since
1890. Puerperal fever also seems to be somewhat on the decrease,
with an average of 650 cases annually from 1871 to 1880, 505
from 1881 to 1885, aud'487 from 1886^0 1895. Specifications regarding
pyaemia (septicemia) are only forthcoming from the towns.
I t appears to be comparatively rare. Erysipelas is more frequent
(about 2000 cases annually). Smallpox is notjnfrequently imported,
.but it has always been possible to prevent its spread. From 1886
to 1895, 369 cases in all were reported, most in 1891 (99), fewest
in 1894 (11). About 1700 cases of chicken-pox are reported annually,
the majority from the towns. Among the typhoid diseases,
febris recurrens is very rare/-(only one case since 1875), and both
typhus and typhoid fever are becoming less-frequent, the number
of cases in the 10 years 1886 to 1895 being only half that of the
preceding 10 years. The average number of persons attacked annually
was 1500 by typhoid, 58 by typhus fever. The latter occurs
almost exclusively in the north of Norway. About 50 cases of
cerebrospinal meningitis are entered annually as epidemic. Any connection
between them, however, can seldom be demonstrated. Now
and then there are cases of the so-called Hemming fever», which
is ascribed to the poisoning of drinking-water by dead lemmings.
Most of the cases of bloody flux (200—300 annually) should more
properly be regarded as bloody epidemic diarrhoea, not as dysentery.
Asiatic cholera appeared last in 1872 (23 cases and 10 deaths). Ague
is now and then brought home by sailors. Eeriberi has sometimes
come in the same manner, but has never spread. Scurvy (about
80 cases annually) is seldom found except in the northern districts.
The total average number of cases of epidemic diseases from 1886
to 1895 was 87.2 per thousand inhabitants annually (acute bronchial
catarrh 37.6, diarrhoea 12.8, influenza 10.1, inflammation of the lungs
5.4, measles, scarlet fever, whooping-cough and diphtheria 3.3—3.6,
typhus fever, cerebrospinal meningitis, small-pox and scurvy 0.03).
The deaths reported by medical men included, in the same
ten years, about 62 per cent, of all the deaths from disease;
and of these, an average of 6950 annually (about 30 per cent
of the total number) were due to epidemic diseases. The influence
of these diseases upon the death-rate depends, however,
less upon the frequency of the cases than upon the virulence of
the diseases. In 1894, when diphtheria and inflammation of the
lungs appeared in a malignant form, and there was an epidemic
of measles, the number was 7943; in 1895, when no epidemic disease
was specially frequent, it was 6007. With regard to the division
between the various diseases, 8 per cent of the total number of
deaths from disease were due to inflammation of the lungs, from
2.9 to 12,8 per cent to diphtheria and croup, about 5 per cent
to acute catarrhs, 4 per cent to diarrhoea and cholerine, and less
than 2 per cent to influenza. The distribution in town and country
is fairly even, when diarrhoea’is not taken into account. Great
epidemics of this disease often occur in the summer in the towns,
affecting the mortality among children.
Among chronic diseases tuberculosis occupies the most prominent
place. There are no reliable'statistics to be obtained earlier
than 1853, and since then the disease has steadily increased,
by a total of 30 per cent. In every 1000 inhabitants, an average
of 2.65 died annually of tuberculosis during the years 1853—1860,
2.85 from 1861—1870, 3.24 from 1871—1880, and 3.38 from
1881—1890. During the last 20 years, consumption has caused
15.5 per cent, and the other tuberculous diseases 4 per cent of the
15