Statistics of mortality among prisoners : being an inquiry into the death-rate of the government prisons of England, its causes, and the circumstances affecting it : with pathological observations.

  • Nicolson, David.
Date:
[1872]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statistics of mortality among prisoners : being an inquiry into the death-rate of the government prisons of England, its causes, and the circumstances affecting it : with pathological observations. 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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    respectable order have been strained to the utmost in the ups and downs of speculation. The nervous system, unequal to the task im- posed upon it, has become unhinged by worry and anxiety, to the neglect of the healthful watits of the body 3 gastric derangement is the consequence, and the heart or the brain becomes seriously in- volved. Troin all this it will certaiidy be no matter of surprise if we find that large numbers of our prisoners are Ul-condiiioned, either in body or mind. And what do figures tell us ? In their Eeport for the year 1868 the directors of convict prisons state that, “ by returns made in April, 1869, it appears that, of 5458 convicts who have passed the period when they were eligible for removal to public works, 1762 were invalids, or incapable to such an extent as to be fit only for light labour, and 162 were permanent invalids hardly capable of any labour at all; i.e. 5 out of every 14 prisoners (1 in 2’8) were invalids or fit only for light labour. On the same authority (report for 1869) we find that as many as 370 males (almost the half) out of 784 received into MiUbank were of weak and enfeebled constitutions on reception. And Mr. Gover, the medical officer of Millbank, in his report for 1868, makes the following statement, which I give in full:—“ The great majority of the prisoners who were removed to Dartmoor and Woking as invalids w^re suffering on reception from the diseases or infirmities marked as the cause of removal. Many of them improved very considerably in the interval between their reception and re- moval ; and 1 may here observe, with reference to the population of the prison as a whole, that the general tendency to improvement, which has previously been a subject of remark, has been as manifest during the year just ended as in former years. Nevertheless, taking the population of this prison, exclusive of the imbeciles and epilep- tics, as affording a fair standard of comparison, I have reason to believe that the proportion of convicts afflicted with mental and bodily diseases is greater than would be found in any other section of the community.^' And in his report for the same year Mr. Blaker, the medical officer of the Public Works Prison at Portland, says : “ There can hardly be a doubt that the number of weakly and diseased prisoners IS largely on the increase, and experience and observation lead me to think that the vast majority of these convicts entered prison suflering from latent or actual disease. It is plain, then, that a large proportion (probably over one third) of criminals bring with them into j)rison impaired constitu- tions. This impairment or defect manifests itself, first, in the form of positive disease or infirmity; secondly, in a predisposition to certain forms of disease, mostly of a constitutional or phthisical nature; and, thirdly, in a want of ability to resist the destructive