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34
classified list of occupations in our Parish, which I
published in my last year's Report, you will find
that the proportion of persons employed in in-door
and sedentary occupations, is greater by more than
three to one of those pursuing active occupations ;
it will be seen that there is no reason to infer that
this death especially affected those who pursued one
particular kind of vocation, or one particular group
of vocations.
TEMPERATURE OF THE AIR.
There is one great cause of death over which
the Medical Officer of Health has comparatively
little control, and that is diminished temperature or
cold. It has been found on a much more enlarged
scale than that which any single parish can afford,
that after the age of thirty, cold exercises so
baneful an influence, that its effects can be given
by a kind of law. Thus, if the temperature falls
low enough to produce one death at thirty years of
age, it will produce two at thirty-nine years of age,
and four at forty-eight years of age, and eight at
fifty-seven years, and sixteen at sixty-six years, and
so on.
The question then for us now to answer is,
whether the death of 1864 depended on a diminution
of temperature in that year. I now give a total of
the average temperature of each quarter for the
three years which we have already compared.