Shut your mouth and save your life / by George Catlin.

  • Catlin, George, 1796-1872.
Date:
1875
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Shut your mouth and save your life / by George Catlin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    12/114 (page 4)
    amongst the Tribes of North and South America, amongst whom, in their 'primitive condition, the above- mentioned diseases are seldom heard of; and the almost unexceptional regularity, beauty, and soundness of their teeth last them to advanced life and old age. In civilized communities, better sheltered, less ex- posed, and with the aid of the ablest professional skill, the sanitary condition of mankind, with its variety, its complication, and fatality of diseases—its aches and pains, and mental and physical deformities, presents a more lamentable and mournful list, which plainly indi- cates the existence of some extraordinary latent cause, not as yet sufficiently appreciated, and which it is the sole object of this little work to expose. From the Bills of Mortality which are annually pro- duced in the civilized world, we learn that in London and other large towns in England, and cities of the Continent, on an average, one half of the human Race die before they reach the age of five years, and one half of the remainder die before they reach the age of twenty- five, thus leaving but one in four to share the chances of lasting from the age of twenty-five to old age. Statistical accounts showed, not many years past, that in London, one half of the children died under three years, in Stockholm, one half died under two years, and in Manchester, one half died under five years; but owing to recent improved sanitary regula-