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Report of Medical. Officer of Health.]
59
insufficient information as to, home addresses, and of the 378 in St. John, 20 have been excluded
for the same reason. In St. Mary the 1,821 deaths allotted were referred to 1,501 houses, 2 or
more deaths being allotted to 256. In St. John the 358 deaths were allotted to 320 houses,
2 or more deaths being allotted to 32. The maximum number allotted to any house was 6 (1 house)
in St. Mary, and 4 (2 houses) in St. John. The complete figures are appended below:—

According to the returns of the census of 1891, there were 9,420 inhabited houses in St. Mary
and 5,053 in St. John, so that in St. Mary 15.8 per cent, of the houses were infected, as compared
with 6.3 in St. John.
As has been mentioned already, there are not wanting indications that there is a kind of
selection in the seat of infection of tuberculosis at the various ages of life. Children suffer more
from tuberculosis of the intestines and brain; adults of the lungs. The disease is an infectious
one, and is transmitted from person to person, or from animals to man. In dealing with this part
of the subject two factors have to be considered—(a) infection through the food, and (b) direct
infection from person to person, nearly always through the air, due to living under conditions
which either favour the persistence and development of the organism (the bacillus tuberculosis) in
the home, workshop, school, or elsewhere, or entail living in such aggregation as leads to the direct
transference of the organism from person to person by the sputum. Of inherited tuberculosis it is
unnecessary to say anything. It may be taken as almost conclusively proved that no one is born
infected, but it is beyond dispute that children are born highly predisposed to become so.
The latter will, however, if properly cared for, in the majority of cases escape such infection.
To what extent have the circumstances of life—apart from food—influenced the prevalence of
the disease ? This subject cannot be dealt with here as fully as it deserves to be. A mass of
information has been collected which is not yet in a form for report. One factor alone can be
mentioned, that is, the relation between density of population and mortality from this disease.
At the census of 1891 the average number of persons occupying an area of one statute acre in
St. Mary was 105.8, and in St. John 75.8, while the number of inhabitants per house averaged
8.9 in the former to 6.6 in the latter district. Tenements of 4 rooms or less were separately
scheduled, and the total number of such homes in St. Mary was 14,328 (housing 49,030 persons,
equal to 58.2 per cent, of whole population of district), and 2,880 in St. John (housing 9,068
persons, equal to 26.8 of the population of the district). The average number of persons per home
of 4 rooms or less was, therefore, 3 4 in St. Mary, and 3.l in St. John. Taking a standard allowance
of 2 persons per room as constituting the maximum permissible without overcrowding, it is found