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1. Includes Small Pox, Measles, Scarlet Fever, Diptheria, Whooping Cough, Fever, and Diarrhoea.
3. Includes Phthisis, Scrofula, Rickets and Tabes.
4. Includes Marasmus, Atrophy, Debility, Want of Breast milk and Premature Birth.
6. Includes Hydrocephalus, Infantile Meningitis, Convulsions and Teething,
38. Pulmonary Diseases and their Causes.—The foregoing
Table exhibits the great preponderance of deaths from pulmonary
diseases in our general mortality, more than one fourth of the whole
number of deaths having been caused by this class of maladies.
The chief of these is bronchitis. This fact should call more marked
attention than it does to the causes that produce these maladies.
The public are most concerned about the prevalence of fevers and
the removal of certain conditions which are presumed to favour the
propagation of these maladies, whilst they regard bronchitis, and
lung diseases generally—other than phthisis—as among the inevitable
consequences of our social state. It is, no doubt, true that
the debilitating influences that pre.dispose to attacks of zymotic
disease also prepare the way for fatal attacks of bronchitis, more
especially in young children. But in much the same way that high
temperature and foetor—plus a special poison—engender zymotic
diseases, cold and draught induce pulmonary affections ; and it is of
little consequence with which weapon death chooses to strike if the
victims be knocked down and yield their annual tale.
39. I have no doubt that this heavy mortality from pulmonary
affections is largely caused by the ill.constructed dwellings of the
poor, and by the water.logged soil that constitutes their foundations.
The windows, moreover, are constantly broken, the walls damp, and
roofs leaky, letting in wind and rain upon the occupants. A large
part of our sanitary work consists in the removal of these evils, but
the mischief is apt to recur as soon as it. is corrected, owing to the
recklessness and bad habits of the occupiers themselves, rather than
to any systematic neglect of the owners. The intemperate habits of
the poor, too, lay them open to attacks of bronchitis, for it is no uncommon
thing for a man or woman to come home intoxicated and to
lie down in wet clothes on the floor, either of the room or staircase.