Rushden, Higham Ferrers, and Raunds occupy an unenviable position with regard to the death-rate from tuberculosis, compared with the rest of the county, the three towns named having the heaviest mortality from that dire disease among the urban districts in Northamptonshire, and being considerably above the average for the past year in the Northamptonshire County Council's area. From the annual report of the County Medical Officer of Health we learn that the total number of cases of tuberculosis notified in the county during the past twelve months was 444, including nine members of the naval or military forces. The total number of deaths among Civilians from tuberculosis was 289, and of these, 158 belonged to the urban districts and 131 to the rural areas, so that the mortality, it will be seen, was fairly evenly distributed between town   and country. We would direct our readers' attention to the following table showing the number of deaths in Northamptonshire from all forms of tuberculosis—and not merely from pulmonary tuberculosis— uring the past few years and the death-rate per thousand of the population: —

The mortality for the past three years, it will   be seen, has been practically stationary. When we come to the details regarding the urban districts of the county we find that, arranged in the order of their tuberculosis death-rate, they stand as follow: —

In the eighteen rural districts the rate ranged from 0.76 in the Gretton area to 2.32 in the Northampton rural district, the Wellingborough area—which includes Irchester, Wollaston, Earls Barton, and other villages—occupying a favourable position as the fifth lowest in the list with a death-rate of 1.00, and the Thrapston area—which includes Stanwick, Chelveston, and other villages—being the eighth, with a rate of 1.31. It is not possible to compare last year's figures with any of the years prior to 1913, as before that time only cases of pulmonary tuberculosis were taken into account, whereas now every form of tuberculosis is notifiable. Rushden's high proportion of deaths from tuberculosis is the one blot upon an otherwise remarkably healthy town, but when the deaths from all causes have been included—consumption, of course, amongst the number—Rushden has a lower death-rate than any other urban or rural district in the county.