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tics, then, I may say that all medical writers are
agreed that impure air, from want of ventilation,
is the most potent of all the causes of consumption.
If we look to the death rate from phthisis in
various parts of England, we shall find that " in
"proportion as the male and female populations
"are severally attracted to indoor branches of
"industry, in such proportion, the things being
"equal, their respective death-rates by phthisis are
"increased*."
It may be further stated that, just in proportion
to the crowding together in rooms, houses, shops,
workshops, or manufactories of such a population
will be the death from phthisis. Now, if we turn
to the Table at page 6 it will be seen that whilst
134 persons only live on an acre of ground in the
St. James's Square division of your parish, there
are 262 in the Golden Square division, and the
large number of 432 on an acre in the Berwick
Street division. It cannot therefore, I think, be
doubted that it is the overcrowding and want of
ventilation in this latter division of the parish that
produces the tendency to an increased amount of
death from phthisis.
But this presence of impure air and want of
ventilation acts throughout the parish, and I would
especially call attention to the large population in
St. James's who are confined in shops, and on whom
*Series of Papers relating to the Sanitary State of the People of
England.—London: 1858.