Facts about health worth recollecting.

  • Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts about health worth recollecting. 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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    MANCHESTER AND SALFORD SANITAEY ASSOCIATION. TRACT SERIES, No. 3. I i FACTS AROUT HEALTH WORTH RECOLLECTINO. | I.—War ia a fearful scourge; but much more fearful are fevers, cholera, and the other diseases which human care and prudence might very generally prevent. During the last war, there were, in Uoenty-two years, 19,796 men killed; but during 1848-49 there were, in one year alone, 72,180 persons killed by cholera and epidemic diarrhoea. In the twenty-two years of war, 79,709 men were wounded; but in the one year of cholera and diarrhoea, 144,860 persona were attacked, j II.—-The ordinary number of deaths every year, from preventable diseases, is fearful to contemplate. The annual average of deaths caused by want of proper care in regard to the mode and place of living, is 115,000; and if there be added to these such others as a higher tone in the religious, moral, and intellectual character of the people would prevent, there cannot be fewer 126,000 lives unnecessarily destroyed in England and Wales, eve^-y year. \ 111.—The widowhood and orphanage caused by deaths from preventable dis- { eases, are far greater than such as are caused by the fatal effects of war; the number of married adults who fall in pestilences, epidemics, &c,, being greater than those who fall in war. In 1842, there Vere 27,000 cases of premature widowhood, and upwards of 100,000 orphans then chargeable to the poor rates, from preventable causes. IV. —The total annual losses from preventable disease, from lost labour, by premature death, and excessive and premature sickness, and the expense of excessive numbers of funerals, are under-estimated at £2,000,000 annually. V. —That cholera is preventable, if the diarrhoea, or looseness of the bowels, by which it is generally preccdcj^, bo duly and promptly attended to, is shown by facts like these:— 1. In 1848-49, in Dumfries, before the people were made aware, by house to house visitation, of the necessity of attending to the first symptoms of diarrhoea, 260 deaths occurred. After the visitation commenced, and the people were taught what they ought to do, the attacks and number of deaths greatly diminished; and in nine days, except a few solitary cases, the epidemic was at an end.