A contribution to the study of epidemic diarrhoea : presidential address delivered before the Incorporated Society [of] Medical Officers of Health, November, 1899 / by Arthur Newsholme.

  • Newsholme, Arthur, 1857-1943.
Date:
[1900]
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: A contribution to the study of epidemic diarrhoea : presidential address delivered before the Incorporated Society [of] Medical Officers of Health, November, 1899 / by Arthur Newsholme. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Table E. Town. Diarrhceal Death-rate Average of 1882-98. Of 100 Tenements or Dwellings of all Kinds, the Number consisting of Four Rooms, or less than this Number, was Of every 100 of the Total Population, the Number overcrowded, i.e., living more than Two in a Room, was Halifax 12-4 69 21-3 Huddersfield 15-7 71 19-9 Bristol 18-8 49 8-0 Oldham 19-8 76 101 Blackburn ... 41-8 64 7-0 Bolton 42-0 69 11-2 Leicester 48-4 25 2-2 Preston 60-4 46 4T The figures of the last census as to the variations of overcrowding are very extraordinary. If, as is likely, they possess a certain measure of value, the experience of both Halifax and Leicester might be held to indicate that there is an inverse relationship between overcrowding and diarrhoea, which is a reductio ad absurdum. All that we can say with safety is that we have not discovered in the preceding statistics any explanation of the great differences in diarrhceal mortality in English towns; and we must leave un- answered, for the present, the question, Why is epidemic diarrhoea chiefly a disease of urban life ? WTe turn next to social and industrial conditions. B.—Epidemic diarrhoea as a fatal disease is a disease of the artisan and still more of the lower labouring classes to a preponderant extent. Although it is difficult to adduce satisfactory class-statistics on this point, the truth of the foregoing statement will be generally admitted. The diarrhoeal death rates for the different townships of Manchester (page 7), to those who are familiar with the class-distribution of the population of that city, teach the same lesson. So do the figures for the different districts of London. The lower the social status, the greater is the rate of mortality from diarrhoea. But why ? Is it that the mother’s attention is distracted from her infant by the necessity of sharing in the earning of the family income, or that the home-conditions are less favourable ? On the industrial occupation and social status of married women, the figures of the last census shed some light. The figures in the first two columns of Table F are taken from a paper by Miss Collett, M.A.* At first sight Table F appears to support the view that where a large proportion of married women are engaged in non-domestic * Journ. Royal Statistical Society, June, 1898. An abstract of this paper will be found in Public Health, vol. x., p. 874, August, 1898. 2