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MORTALITY OF THE CITY OF LONDON.
17
may, therefore, to a great extent be disarmed of
their malignity.
The last column gives the total of those which
have preceded it, and shows, out of 9,493 deaths,
3,923, all from acute disease, in intimate dependence
on local and obviable causes. It will be a
very moderate computation with respect to these
deaths, if we estimate that two-thirds of them might
have been hindered.
And yet it is not only by acute disorders, that
preventable death succeeds in ravaging the population.
If we turn to the examination of chronic
ailments producing death, we may quickly recognise
many indications of their preventability, and may
satisfy ourselves that here also the general mortality
might be very largely reduced.
Look, for instance, at the whole immense class of
scrofulous diseases, including pulmonary consumption,
a class probably causing, directly or indirectly,
at least a quarter of our entire mortality; and consider
the vast influence which circumstances exert
over its development.
Of such circumstances some lie within your control,
and affect masses of the people; but the more
special causes of chronic disease lie rather out of
your jurisdiction, and the option of avoiding them
is a matter of individual will. Vicious habits and
indiscretion, a life too indolent, or too laborious,
poverty and privation, vicissitudes of weather and
temperature, intemperance in diet, unwholesome
c