On the prevention of consumption : a report.

  • Edinburgh. Public Health Committee.
Date:
1900
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On the prevention of consumption : a report. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    disease shows a virulent type and is generally rapid in its course. Among the islands of the Southern Pacific native races suffer enormously, and it is said that in New Caledonia consumption accounts for two-fifths of all the deaths. That it is a disease of civilisation rather than of savage races is proved by the evidence of authorities who show that, until the habits of the natives came to be changed by more intimate intercourse with traders and European immigrants, the disease was unknown in the South Sea Islands. A better knowledge of present day facts will also show us that we must change our notions of the rarity of the disease in Australia and New Zealand. In the latter colony it has gone far to kill off the Maori race, while in the former it cannot be said that matters are any better than at home. In Japan a striking exception to the general rule in Asia is fast becoming apparent, owing, no doubt, to the spread of present-day knowledge, for upon the average of three years, 1892-1894 inclusive, the mortality from consumption had been reduced to l*3o per 1000 inhabitants, or slightly under that reached in England and Wales at the same period. In the American Union there is more consumption along the Atlantic seaboard than in the Western States. At the census of 1890 New York, with 3’87 per 1000 inhabitants, had the highest mortality of all the great cities of America. But New York , as we shall soon see, has shown a splendid example by the manner in which since 1892 she has grappled with the disease. The consumption mortality of the United States shows in a remarkable way how much more readily the Negro races succumb to ])hthisis than the whites, for in every 100,000 in- habitants the dark race shows 583 victims against only 252 shewn by the white. This corresponds with the facts obtained regarding the coloured races in other countries, but particularly in Western Africa. There is much yet to be desired in fulness and care in the compilation of statistics on tuberculosis in various parts of the world; but enough has probably been stated and proved to warrant the broad assertion that of all the ills that flesh is heir to, there is none so constant or so deadly as this terrible sickness which is responsible for not less than about one- seventh of the whole death-rate of the world.