Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With AppendicesChadwick, Edwin
History
Report to Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State For the Home Department, from the Poor Law Commissioners, on an Inquiry Into the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain; With Appendices
Chadwick, Edwin
Housing -- Great Britain; Public health -- Great Britain
“In the Glasgow Fever Hospital there occurred 81 deaths from eruptive
typhus in individuals whose habits were ascertained, and 34 of these
were reported as intemperate, 19 a little intemperate, and 28
temperate. In Dr. Craigie’s table of the deaths in 31 fever cases that
occurred in the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, there were 15 stated to be
irregular or dissipated; only two regular; the habits of the remainder
are not stated.
“It is also a singular fact, which has been noticed by several
writers, that fever is more fatal among the higher than among the
lower classes. Dr. Braken states, in reference to the fever which
prevailed at Waterford during the years 1817–18–19, that ‘it would be
difficult to adjust the rates of mortality in the upper classes, but
it seems probable that one-fourth, or perhaps one-third of all those
persons who were attacked with fever fell victims to its power.’
“Drs. Barker and Cheyne, in their historical account of the Irish
epidemic, state that, ‘in every part of the country, fever was
reported to have been much more fatal amongst the upper than the lower
classes.’ To what is this difference of mortality, so generally
remarked by experienced hospital physicians, to be attributed, and
which in Ireland seemed to be very remarkable, namely, in the lower
classes about one in twenty-three cases, and in the upper classes one
in three or four generally, but in other places about one in seven?
Can the difference in the mode of living account for this anomaly? as
the first live very much on potatoes, while the others use a larger or
smaller proportion of animal food; and the lower classes almost
everywhere in this country use less animal food and stimulating dishes
than those who are more wealthy and in a higher sphere of society.”
In remarking on the supposed influence of fear and the depressing
passions in producing fever, _Dr. Davidson_, however, remarks:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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