Researches upon the necropolis of New Orleans, with brief allusions to its vital arithmetic / by Bennet Dowler.

  • Bennet Dowler
Date:
1850
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Researches upon the necropolis of New Orleans, with brief allusions to its vital arithmetic / by Bennet Dowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    la copied, that writers having no others comparable with these, have from necessity whicli knows no law of logic, drawn their figures, chiefly from this institution, wherewith to illustrate, prove, and establish the sanitary condition of a city, which, from its commercial character, geo- graphical position, easy excess by rivers, lakes, and seas, and from its public charily, becomes the asylum of foreign paupers, passing through, or temporarily resident in it. To these may be added sick and destitute boatmen, seamen, ditchers, wood-choppers, andraftmen, from the valley and swamps of the lower Mississippi, not to name a vast many poor con- sumptives seeking the benefit of the climate. Besides, New Orleans has been and continues to be, the recipient of the broken down soldiers, the debris of the armies of Generals Taylor and Scott. In fact, the Re- port, of the Board of Health, for 1649, could not have happened in a more unfavorable and unhealthy period, that which they have selected. At no period, however, can the statistics of the Charity Hospital, be appealed to as the test of the salubrity of New Orleans, as a whole.— Thus in twenty years ending in 1850, the admissions of patients into that institution, (according to Dr. Fenner's valuable Medical Reports) amounted to 12:3,917 of which number only 1293 were Louisianians, that is to say, about one in every hundred. But probably not more than half of these were citizens of New Orleans, that is, one in every two hundred. Admitting, what is generally conceeded, that the hospital admissions, represent from l-4th. to l-3d. of the whole number of sick .strangers; but taking the latter ratio asaguide.it follows, that 371,751 strangers are to be charged to the sick list of the actual citziens of the town. Thus, the annual Report of the Board of Health for the city of New Orleans, for 1819, makes the announcement, in general terms, that the mortality is unquestionably great—admitting, however, as it does, that a very considerable portion of it [the mortality] is derived from the floating population, not enumerated in the census which should have been stated in the mortuary certificates, [but which was not so stated. ] The report adds, The efforts of the Board have been incessant to procure a knowl- edge of the actual sanitary condition of the city, as without such knowl- edge, all attempts to improve it would be but gropiug in the dark; for that purpose they prepared and extensively circulated a set of by-laws, rules and regulations, with blanks for every purpose required by the Board; requesting physicians and others, whose duty it was made by law to prepare certificates to legalise burials, to give such information, as if complied with, would leave nothing wanting on this important de- partment of their duty; the most urgent means have been used to obtain compliance, but they regret to say with unsatisfactory results. * * * The Board excepts with pleasure from tins implied censure, the cemetery reports emenaiing from the Charity Hospital, they have usually contained most of the information required. The deep- est regret is felt at this omission, as we have few past records of what thai situation lias been, we are proceeding on ignorant of what are the actual truths, with a reputation abroad for perennial pestilence, with a boasting at home of unparalleled salubrity, it is high time the truth