A letter to William Squire, Esquire ... on the present aspect of the Yarmouth sanitary movement; together with suggestions for its farther development / by C. Lockhart Robertson.

Date:
[1849]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to William Squire, Esquire ... on the present aspect of the Yarmouth sanitary movement; together with suggestions for its farther development / by C. Lockhart Robertson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    truthfully point to the existence of unnecessary sickness and premature death, and demonstrate the same to be, in a great measure, the result of their rulers’ neglect of the physical laws by which the Creator governs this universe. But in no one instance has such a course been adopted by the advocates of Sanitary Reform : it was to higher motives of action to which alone they appealed. They demonstrated by the aid of the science of vital statistics, the existence in our cities and towns* * Mr. Lee, in opening the recent Sanitary Inquiry, observed “ that there is excessive mortality in Yarmouth is beyond a doubt, for I have returns from various places in the county, and on looking at them, there is such excess of disease in Yarmouth, that, by comparing it with other places in your locality, it is at once apparent that the loss entailed by it is far more than the cost of the application of the Public Health Act could be. I will give you figures which must convince you there is such mortality, to the extent I have named The returns for the county of Norfolk, made to the Registrar-General, are divided into eight districts—of which the first is Wayland, Guiltcross, and Depwade; the next, Flegg, Tunstead, Aylsham, and Erpingham, which I find to be more unhealthy than the three places I first named ; Loddon, St. Faith’s, Henstead, and Blofield, are found to be still more unhealthy than the previous places named; then Norwich, and still going downwards next comes Yarmouth. Now, in the three first places, 1 in 54 of the entire population die annually; in Yarmouth, 1 in 49, Of deaths from epidemic disease, which is a class most powerfully affected by a bad sanitary condition, there is only one in 424 in the Wayland district, against 1 in 298 in Yarmouth. The average age at death, of all who have died, in the former is 35 years and 1 month; in Yarmouth, 33 years and 2 months only: therefore, of all who are born here, there is a loss of life to each of nearly 2 years, as compared with other districts in your own county ; and of adult persons who have attained the age of 20, the average age is 60 years in the former, but in Yarmouth only 58| years, a loss, therefore, of 18 months to each. Wherever the drainage, ventilation, and water supply, is defective, it has been found the mortality among infants is excessive, because they are more susceptible of atmospheric disease and the miasma arising from unremoved decomposing matter. They do not go about from place to place as adults do, but are more stationary in the localities where evils producing disease and death exist, and I find that the proportion of deaths of infants to the entire number of deaths, is as follows :—under 1 year of age, in the first-named district 23 per cent., in Yarmouth 22| per cent., there is rather less in the latter; under 5 years 32| percent., against 34| per cent, in Yarmouth; under 15 years 40 per cent., in Yarmouth 41§ per cent.; and under 20 years 44J percent., in Yarmouth 47 per cent.; so that 2^ per cent, would be in excess, taking a