View report page

13
Out of 512 members of the United Society of Boiler Makers and Iron Ship
Builders, 60, and out of 311 wives of members 39, or about 12 per cent. in
both cases died of phthisis. Out of 265 members of the Amalgamated Society
of Railway Servants who died, 26, or 10 per cent. died of phthisis. Out of
1,146 members of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, 113, or 10 per cent.
and out of 527 wives of members, 66, or 12 per cent., died of phthisis and
tuberculosis. He also shows that the average ages of those who died from
phthisis were for males 37 3/4 years, and for females 37¼ years in the Amalgamated
Engineers Society, while the average ages from all causes of death in the same
Society were for males 52 and for females 47. So that in this Union the
deaths from phthisis are premature to the extent of from 10.15 years. In the
Operative Bricklayers' Union the average ages of those dying from all causes
was 46, and from phthisis 39½ years. In the Boiler Makers Society members
deaths from all causes were 47, from phthisis 38½ wives of members from all
causes 43, from phthisis 35½ Among Railway Servants from all causes 44½,
from phthisis 36½.
Thus we see that the question of the prevention of tuberculosis is of the
very utmost importance to Friendly Societies, and to Sick Benefit Societies
generally, and, therefore, to working men.
A POOR LAW QUESTION.
But outside of these Societies there is a huge mass of humanity who have
no Society to look to, labourers, persons in casual employment, widows,
orphans, and especially single women, or married women deserted by their
husbands, who earn a precarious livelihood, and whose ultimate fate is to flee to
the workhouses and their infirmaries when disease overtakes them. The
prevention of phthisis is, therefore, a great question for those engaged in Poor
Law Administration, as well as for Sanitary Authorities. And here let me
state that something of this has dawned on the Islington Guardians, for they
are now through their Relieving Officers notifying cases of the disease which
come under their notice. All of them had, however, previously been removed to
hospital or had died. The figures as to the ages at death among the Friendly
Societies given by Mr. Brabrook, show that even among a tolerably select class
of lives the average ages at death from phthisis range from 35½ to 39½, and it
occurs, therefore, at a time when the parents have young families around them.
Consequently, when we come to the lower grades of working men, who live
under ill conditions both as to housing, food and clothing, we must necessarily
find that the workers die at even a lesser age, leaving their families to be provided
for to a very large extent by the rates. The fact is that Consumption causes
more pauperism than any other disease, and, therefore, if it can be stamped