As previously mentioned, the Scottish (Digital) Archive Network http://www.scan.org.uk/digitalarchive/index.htm is a site well worth visiting. Included in the Archives is the Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health in 1891. What an interesting thing to read. Certainly it post dates many of our families who emigrated, but remember that they left family behind too. Also the report describes living conditions. If this is the way that islanders lived in 1891, I'm sure that it must have been worse 40 years earlier. The following is just some of the gleanings pertaining to Islay in 1891: whooping cough specifically mentioned in Kilmeny (typhoid in Jura) a brief physical description of the hospital near Bowmore (the present Gaelic College?) population 8514; acreage 255,230 acres There is an interesting table of Births and Deaths during 1891, including a breakdown of causes of death. Another interesting table of reported cases of sickness of Islay with the numbers reported for various illnesses/diseases with influenza, whooping cough and measles leading the numbers. There were 9 houses reported as particularly injurious to health.under the Housing of the Working Classes Act. There were 66 deaths uncertified as to the cause of death and a total of 148 deaths in 1891. Cheerio Sue Visser Ontario, Canada