Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly.

  • Jamaica. Central Board of Health
Date:
1852
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report by the Central Board of Health of Jamaica / presented to the legislature under the provisions of the 14th Vic. chap. 60, and printed by order of the Assembly. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    464/594 (page 154)
    11;54 .Appendix, coin. The same remark applies with redoubled force to the pageantry observed and maintained in th6 costly obsequies of their dead. The procession, in such cases, often reminds the spectator of the tail of a coir.et! And 1 cannot help noting the fact, tliat the negro population generally, seem to have an unac- countable propensity to law and lawyers. This pre- dilection may be ascribed to their invincible love of feuds. They are the most litigious, wrangling, quar- relsome, jabbering people upon earth ; and, liowever incon*^istent it may appear, they can always find mo- ney for law expenses ; physic^ nnder any circum- stances, they throw to the dogs.'' The sentences of i'he police justices, involving pecuniary fines, are no sooner pronounced by them, than they are paid to the clerk. ]No. 0. A question, I apprehend, for medicnl men residing in MiT«/districts. To my knowledge it worked badly, and the failure is attributable, j)erhaps, to the ^iiuses recorded in answer eight. No. 10. Benjamin Naar, esquire, tobacconist, Ha- nover street ; some times fees, other times salary ; now fees again, by the disallowance of the act to fix the salary, at the colonial office; fees average now nearly £400 per.annum. Average number of inquests, per annum, after the late visitation, ninety ; before, one nundred ; average number of post mortem examina- tions about twenty-eight ; preponderating cause or causes of mortality, I would say '* intemperance,'* (apoplexy and pectoral disorders maybe, so recorded, but are not these very often superinduced by intem- perance 0 prevailing alike in palaces and in hovels.^ * Hoacc wc Uavc, i;: iliis iiiiaau, n considerable amount ofintemper- ance, r^nd as tl:c cnnscquencc, a coiisidci aI>ie amount of disease, mentaL derang&mcTit, pfiuyevism, crime, and misery. This must be obvious to the most casuHi observer. Mr. Nelson read npaper before the Statisti- cal Society of Loudc;n, in .lr.r*c, l.'isi. year, ■on the rate nf viortality^ among persofts of intemperate huliits,^' which shows lhat the lives of becr- dri.ikcii .';yera;;o I'venty-one j'ears: j;3w*ii-diiukers, sixteen ;. and those Tkho drank botii heT inuX spiriL indiscriminatelif, sixteen. The ai'erag-o duraiif^n of life after the commencement of intemperate habits among misciiinics, workiatj and labouring men, wa^ eighteen years; traders^