Epidemics considered with relation to their common nature, and to climate and civilization : in two lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, November 1855 / by Southwood Smith.

  • Smith, Southwood, 1788-1861.
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Epidemics considered with relation to their common nature, and to climate and civilization : in two lectures delivered at the Philosophical Institution, Edinburgh, November 1855 / by Southwood Smith. 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.

    56/76 (page 52)
    EXPERIENCE OF NEGLECTED LOCALITIES. There is before you a Table* which exhibits at one view the particular facts which justify these statements. Such are the results of the first imperfect attempt at improve- ment which, remarkable as they are, are not more striking than the results of neglect. Of the children born in the best part of a town one fifth die before they attain the fifth year of age; <if the children born in the worst, one half die before they attain their fifth year. The inhabitants of the worst localities attain little more than one half the age of those who live in the best. Of 100,000 children born in Surrey, 75,423 attain the age of ten years; 52,000 live to the age of fifty ; and 28,878 live to seventy. In Liverpool, out of 100,000 per- sons born, only 48,211 live ten years ; 25,878 live fifty years; and 8,373 live seventy years. The probable duration of life in Surrey is 53 years; in Liverpool it is 26 years. Were the whole of the metroplis as healthy as the Model Dwellings, there would bo an annual saving in London of 23,000 lives. But these lives are not saved ; this number of persons is allowed to perish every year, and they are as truly and as needlessly sacri- ficed as if they were taken out on Bethnal-green and shot. When we bear in mind the suffering which in every case accompanies this waste of life, and the suffering which must inevitably follow it, and remember that it is admitted that these dreadful evils are remediable and preventible, it is difficult to suppress the natural feelings of indignation and of sorrow, that in a country calling itself Christian the application of the known remedies should be so long delayed. It is right however to acknowledge that something has been done, and is in progress for the improvement of the sanitary condition of the people. The principle is admitted that it is the duty of the Legislature to deal with this matter, and the first systematic legislative effort to bring about a better state of things has been made. It may interest you to know to what extent and with what results. The Public Health Act is in operation, and the general and • Appendix No. VI.