“But it were a mistake to imagine that the sufferings and death of so many citizens are the only _tithes_ which fever has compelled us to pay during the last seven years. Put wholly aside the details of domestic woe and personal suffering which 11,808 cases of fever have introduced into the families of Dundee in these seven years—omit all reckoning of the watching, want, and wretchedness, wrapped up in so many cases of acute disease, and the family bereavements implied in these 1,312 death—and let us view for a moment our fellow-creatures but as so many machines suspended from work by the derangement or destruction of the human machinery, that we may learn something of the probable money loss incurred by fever in these seven years. “From Dr. Southwood Smith, the highest authority on these subjects, we learn that fully one-half of the cases of fever occur in the prime of life, when men are most useful either to their families or to society. Deducting then the 1,312 deaths from the whole number of cases, there will remain 10,496 cases of fever, the one-half of whom, at least, were adults,—that is, 5,248 persons in the prime of life, very many of them heads of families, had fever in these seven years. Now, the average period fever detains a patient from work, according to the same authority, is six weeks. Let us take the earnings in health of these adults at the average of 8_s._ weekly; and the loss of wages to these 5,248 adults, by six weeks’ fever, amounts to 12,595_l._; and this, after excluding all under age, and all the deaths. But these cases, whether treated at home or at the infirmary, must be also loaded with the expense of medical treatment, which is estimated in our infirmary reports at 1_l._ to each case, that is, 5,248_l._ must he added to the loss by wages. But 5,248 cases of those under age remain to be accounted for; and, as fever rarely attacks mere children, but chiefly those either in manhood or approaching manhood, we may estimate the loss of their labour at the one-half of the adults, or 6,297_l._ 12_s._, and the expense of attendance and recovery at one-half also, or 2,624_l._ “But how shall we estimate the pecuniary loss of 1,312 deaths? It seems a strange thing to go about estimating the money value of that which money did not give, and cannot restore when taken away; yet as there are those who understand better a profit and loss account than the arguments of religion and humanity, we shall attempt to estimate the money loss of these 1,312 deaths by fever. “At least one-half, or 656 of these deaths, were deaths of adults, and very many of them heads of families, of which the 337 widows in St. David’s parish afford melancholy evidence.”