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
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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
Mr. Hill states, that he has no doubt the results, which will be
apparent from the examination of the several tables which are placed in
juxta-position, would be corroborated by similar returns obtained from
other well-regulated prisons in Scotland. The returns from the prisons
in England up to the year 1834–5 (which do not, however, give the days
of sickness, but only the number of prisoners attacked with sickness
during the period for which the return was made) further corroborate
these results. Even in the Milbank Penitentiary, the situation of which
is insalubrious, the average annual amount of sickness to the prisoners
who are confined two years and a half is only about eight days to each
person, which, for the average ages, is little above the standard
obtained from the experience of the East India Company’s labourers. The
sickness amongst the metropolitan police is about 10½ days per annum for
each of the force, 2¾ per cent. being constantly on the sick-list. The
sickness in the army is on the average 14½ days each soldier. Mr.
Finlaison informs me he can venture to state, that were any benefit
society to use scales of premiums founded on the prison experience, they
would inevitably be insolvent in less than three years.
M. Villermé has shown the diminution of mortality that has taken place
in the prisons of France, chiefly from stricter attention to
cleanliness, ventilation, and diet, to be equally striking. At Lyons,
from 1800 to 1806, the annual mortality in the prisons was 1 in 19; from
1806 to 1812, it was 1 in 31; from 1812 to 1819, it was 1 in 34; and
from 1820 to 1826, 1 in 43: a similar amelioration has also been
remarked in the prisons of Rouen, and some other large towns in that
kingdom.
The following is a summary return of the diseases of the duration of
each, amongst the population of the wynds, examined by Mr. Tait:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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