The hospital returns throw little light on the causes of the disappearance of native races, unless these are to be found in the great prevalence of tubercular and chest diseases in certain of the colonies. This is especially remarkable in the returns from Australia, Kaffraria, and Canada. But why this class of affections should be so much more prevalent in the temperate than in the tropical colonies could only be ascertained by careful local inquiry. One thing is certain that, in those colonies from which complaints of the disappearance of native races have come, {15} tubercular and chest diseases appear to occasion the largest amount of hospital mortality. The discovery of the causes of this must be referred back to the colonies. Anything which exhausts the constitution; above all things, foul air during sleep, will engender these diseases. Open locality, healthy winds, active daily occupation, are by themselves no safeguards, if the nights be spent in unventilated cabins. The Alpine climates of Europe are known to be the most free of any climates from this tribe of diseases. But even on their healthy mountain slopes scrofula in all its forms prevails among the peasants, engaged during summer on the high pastures, when they pass their nights in the close unhealthy chalets there. It is possible that a tubercular taint so engendered may be the cause of the whole evil, and it is to this point that the inquiry has brought us. * * * * * Appended to the school and hospital returns from each colony, there are very interesting notes, giving generally the impression of the reporters on the nature and causes of disease among the aboriginal population. These notes, the chief portions of which I have appended, confirm the statistical evidence; but they afford little additional light on the causation. The decaying races are chiefly in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and perhaps in certain parts of South Africa. They appear to consist chiefly of tribes which have never been civilized enough or had force of character enough to form fixed settlements or to build towns. Such tribes have few fixed habits or none. But the papers show that they are naturally, in their uncivilized condition, possessed of far stronger stamina, and that they resist the effects of frightful wounds and injuries far better than civilized men. This latter fact tells strongly against any natural proclivity to diseased action. But we nevertheless see that when they come in contact with civilized men, and are, as a necessary consequence, obliged to conform themselves to a certain extent to the vices and customs of their _civilized_ (_!_) neighbours, they perish from disease. [Sidenote: Appendix II., pp. 62–3.]