Health and healthy homes : a guide to domestic hygiene / With notes and additions by J. G. Richardson.

  • Wilson, George.
Date:
1880
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Health and healthy homes : a guide to domestic hygiene / With notes and additions by J. G. Richardson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library at Yale University.

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    by accident among males become more numerous, insanity in both sexes looms on the horizon, and childbirth among women has its fatalities. At twenty-five years of age, we find the number of travellers on life's journey reduced from 1000 to 634, and 62 drop off before the age of thirty-five is reached. This stage embraces the prime of life, the period of manly vigor; yet consumption still proves the most fatal disease, and more so among women. Two-thirds of these are now married, and the deaths from childbirth exceed the deaths from accident among the men. Fever, though not so fatal as it was in the previous period, causes 4 out of the 62 deaths, while consumption claims 27. Other diseases of the lungs, and diseases of the heart and brain, increase in intensity. And here, by way of contrast, let us glance at the fate of a generation exposed to unfavorable sanitary condi- tions, such, for instance, as prevail in large and crowded populations like Liverpool. There, out of the 1000 born, only 434, or less than one-half, reach the age of twenty- five, and only 360 are alive at thirty-five; whereas in healthier districts as many as 727 live to the age of twenty-five, and 667 survive ten years longer. Between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five, the 572 survivors at the former age are reduced by 62; and now we come to the middle arch of life, when the ranks are thinned of one-half their number. A few months after the age of forty-five is reached the 1000 lives are reduced to 500, and when fifty-five is reached the numbers are still further reduced to 421. The passing generation has now produced the succeeding generation. Many of the structures begin rapidly to give way. Consumption still holds its fatal prominence, while lung diseases, heart diseases, brain diseases, and liver diseases are becoming more common and deadly. Fever continues to claim its