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aged and its ailing to the village. Would the death-rate of either
the town or the country village express the sanitary condition
respectively of that town or that village ? Again, there is a necessary
error arising/row the existence of hospitals and such like institutions
in certain localities. It would not be fair to compare the death-rate
of a given square mile which includes, say the London Hospital,
with another square mile where there was no such institution. The
death-rate of these two square miles respectively would be no index
whatsoever of the sanitary condition of those two parts. Again, we
have an immensely important disturbing element in the Birth-rate.
It is an unalterable law, that a high birth-rate means a high deathrate.
Nor is this in the least degree astonishing. Suppose 1000
children to be born on a certain day—statistics prove that over
46 would die within one month of their birth, whilst at the end
of the year there would be only 850 of those 1000 children still
living. This seems a terrible story to tell, and undoubtedly it
is so, but imagine it otherwise; and here I will again quote
Dr. Letheby's own words: "If this were not so the increase of
the population would be prodigious, for it is the means whereby
the annual excess of births over deaths is kept down tothe reasonable
proportion of 12.8 per 1000 of the population. If it reached to 18
per 1000, which is the average excess of two of the Counties of
England, where the death-rate is also high (23.5), the population
would be doubled in rather less than forty years. Consider for a
moment the consequences of this. At the last census in 1871, the
population of England and Wales was 22,712,266—in 40 years it
would be over 45 millions, in 80 years, or in one long life time, it
would be nearly 91 millions, and in 120 years it would be nearly 182
millions, which is the estimated population of India at the present
time. This sort of thing could never last; for in about 240 years
the population of England and Wales, unless it was exported in huge
masses, would reach to rather more than 1,550 millions, and it would
be as thickly placed over the whole country, as it is in London
at the present time. I apprehend however, that long before that
time arrived, the sanitarians who struggle to bring about this condition
would be considered dangerous enemies to the public weal."
Again, the relative proportion of males to females largely
influences the death-rate. If there are more than a normal
proportion of females in a community then you get a death-rate