Introductory lecture delivered at the commencement of the winter session 1864-65, in the Medical School, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh / by Stevenson Macadam.

Date:
1864
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introductory lecture delivered at the commencement of the winter session 1864-65, in the Medical School, Surgeons' Hall, Edinburgh / by Stevenson Macadam. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    of Parliainent was obtained which obliged tlie cliildren to be sent to the couutiy, and the mortality decreased to 450. In happy contrast to this, we have the statistics of the Dublin Protestant Orphan Societies, where the children are boarded with poor Protestant families in Wicklow and other counties, and where the average deaths are only 1 per cent., or 10 in 1000. In England and Wales, at the present day, about 173,000 children under 5 years of age die annually, and indeed one-fourth of all the children die before they reach the fifth year. In the north-western counties of England, the mortality among children is 2| times as high as in the north-eastern counties, and the following are the proportions of deaths in 100 children before they reach their fifth year in several towns and localities :— Scotland, 8 principal towns, . . 41-82 per cent. Aberdeen, . . . . 32 Edinburgh, .... 37 Leith, .... 45 „ Manchester, .... 60 „ Glasgow, . . . . 54 „ In Edinburgh, the annual death-rate amongst children under five years of age ranges from 48 in 1000 in the best localities to 173 in 1000 in the worst localities; and whilst the general mortality in England ranges from 15 to 30 in 1000, the death-rates of infants under 1 year of age is enormously greater, being in the Healthy districts, . . 77 to 100 iu 1000 Medium districts, . . 100 to 200 iu 1000 Unhealthy districts, . . 200 to 300 in 1000 The causes of the excessive or preventible mortality in various localities, are partly special and partly general in their character. The special causes of the high mortality amongst children, ai-e improper food, scanty clothing, unhealthy parents, the administra- tion of cordials or opiates, and bad treatment; Avhilst the special causes of the preventible death-rate of adults are the occupations they pursue, and the food and drink they consume. The knife and fork grinders of Sheffield suffer from the minute particles of steel- filings which are breathed into the lungs; the brass-finishers are affected in a similar way by the brass-filings ; the stone-masons from the dust of stone ; the coal-miners from the powder of coal; the painters, lead-smelters, and plumbers, from lead-poisoning ; the artificial flower-makers, the makers of paper-hangings, and the dyers and cloth-printers from arsenical poisoning; and amongst others, the makers of lucifer matches, from the inhalation of the vapours of phosphorus. The general causes which affect the mortality, are bad house accommodation, impure air, and filthy water. The inferior house accommodation generally leads to confined and restricted air, and in many instances also to bad water. The amount of air which an adult vitiates in the course of the
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