A manual of hygiene : public and private, and compendium of sanitary laws ; for the information and guidance of public health authorities, officers of health, and sanitarians generally / by Charles A. Cameron.
- Charles Alexander Cameron
- Date:
- 1874
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: A manual of hygiene : public and private, and compendium of sanitary laws ; for the information and guidance of public health authorities, officers of health, and sanitarians generally / by Charles A. Cameron. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
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![which, though not absolutely accurate, are of the highest value to sanitarians. Very few people die from old age, yet that is the natural termi- nation of man's life. In the mortality returns a small proportion of the deaths is officially ascribed to accident; but a larger number really results from accidental causes. If a strong and healthy man be poisoned with sewer emanations, and die from typhoid fever, surely that circumstance would be an accident I Every death from a preventable disease is an accident, and not a natural and inevitable event. Nor are all the maladies termed con- stitutional necessarily inherent in man's nature : most of them are the results of privation, hardship, intemperance, gluttony, and im- morality. Many of them are produced by breathing bad air and drinking foul water. They not only originate in our own faults and misfortunes, but we also inherit them from our ancestors; for the effects of the sins and mishaps of men afflict their children even unto the third and fourth generation. The mean period of the life of the people is the best test of the con- dition of the public health. In England the average duration of human life is 39'91 years in the case of males, and 41'85 in that of females. In Scotland the duration of human life is somewhat longer ■ than in England. In Ireland the vital statistics collected are some- what unreliable. In some districts the mortality is much greater than in others. During the ten yeai's ended in 1867 the average death-rate in the districts of England containing the chief towns, and including a population of 11,000,000, was 23'89 per 1,000^ persons living. During the same period in the smaller towns and country parishes, containing a population (in 1861) of 9,135,383,. the rate of mortality was 20*08 in every ] ,000 persons living. In every 1,000 deaths in these islands, nearly one-fourth occur- from zymotic diseases ; more than one-third from local maladies— inflammations and functional diseases of the heart, lungs, and other organs ; ISO from constitutional diseases, such as phthisis, gout, and dropsy; and nearly all the rest—chiefly of children and aged persons—are caused by developmental diseases, such as debi- lity. About 30 deaths per 1,000 occur from violence—murders, suicides, and accidents. Half the number of deaths of young women between the ages of 20 and 30 years are caused by con- sumption. In some parts of England the death-rate is so low as 15 per 1,000 living; in others it rises to from 30 to more than 40. According to Mr. Ratcliffe, rural labourers have on the average 45'32 years to live; carpenters, 45-28 years; domestic servants, 42.03 J'ears ; sawyers, 42'02 years; bakers, 41'92 years; shoe- makers, 40*87 years; weavers, 41*92 years ; tailors, 39*40 years; hatters, 38 91 years; stonemasons, 38*19 years; plumbers, 38*13 years; mill operatives, 38*09 years; blacksmiths, 37'96 years; bricklayers, 37*70 years ; printers, 36-66 years; clerks, 34*99 years ; population of England and Wales, 39*88 years. The rela- c](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21045045_0037.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
