A third contribution to a knowledge of the influence of employments upon health / [William A. Guy].

  • William Augustus Guy
Date:
[1844]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A third contribution to a knowledge of the influence of employments upon health / [William A. Guy]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    A Third Contribution to a Knowledge of the Influence of Employments upon Health. By William Augustus Guy, M.B. Cantab., Professor of Forensic Medicine, King’s College, and Physician to King’s College Hospital, Hon. Sec., &c. \^Read before the Statistical Society of London.^ May 20M, 1844.] In the last two numbers of the Journal of the Statistical Society, the influence of employments upon health was illustrated by means of pro¬ babilities confessedly open to objection, and still standing in need of confirmation. The ratio of cases of pulmonary consumption to those of all other diseases occurring among the out-patients of a public hos¬ pital (the first test employed) was obviously insufficient, inasmuch as that ratio will depend upon the comparative frequency of many diseases of a trivial nature, which may vary with the several employ¬ ments. This being the case, it has seemed advisable to confirm the probability derived from this source by another probability open to a diflferent class of objections. Such is the ratio of cases of death by con¬ sumption to those due to all other causes, as gleaned from the sanitary registers for the year 1839; which registers have been already employed in the latter part of the author’s last communication to the Society. These registers, as has been already stated, are open to the objection that the causes of death are often imperfectly registered. Without intending to lessen the force of this objection, as applying to the greater number of diseases, there is reason to believe that the cases registered as death by consumption, pulmonary consumption, decline, phthisis, &c., above the age of 15, form nearer approximations to the actual facts than almost any other class of diseases, and that, for purposes of comparison, they may be used with some degree of confidence. The first object of the present Essay is to ascertain whether, and to what extent, the ratio which cases entered under these titles bear to ail other diseases, corresponds with the ratio already obtained from the books of the King’s College Hospital; for if a close correspondence shall be dis¬ covered, it will add great strength to the probability already deduced from the last-named source. Another object is to illustrate a question of considerable interest and importance, for which the hospital registers did not furnish the requisite materials, viz.: whether the several classes of society, the gentry, tradesmen, and working men, are equally liable to attacks of pulmonary consumption ? The answer to this question will lead to a consideration of the causes of the unequal prevalence of the disease among the three classes; and this will suggest a further inquiry as to the actual amount of pulmonary consumption in this country; and will originate an attempt to determine the actual waste of human life due to this cause. It is proposed in this communication to follow as closely as possible the order observed in the Essays already laid before the Society. The following table shows, for in-door and out-door employments, the per centage proportion of deaths from pulmonary consumption at different ages, and under 30 and 40 years respectively, the ratio whicli such cases bear to the deaths from all other causes, and the total number of cases on which the calculations are founded ;—