The Philosophy of Health; Volume 1 (of 2): or, an exposition of the physical and mental constitution of manSmith, Southwood
Philosophy
The Philosophy of Health; Volume 1 (of 2): or, an exposition of the physical and mental constitution of man
Smith, Southwood
Hygiene; Physiology
We do not possess the same means of illustrating the prevalence
of disease through all the epochs of life as we do of showing the
intensity of mortality; yet the report of Mr. Finlaison, already
referred to, enables us to show its comparative prevalence at several
of those stages. Thus, from this document, it appears, that among
the industrious poor of London, members of benefit societies, out
of a million of males, the proportion constantly sick at the age of
twenty-three, is 19,410; at the age of twenty-eight, it is 19,670; at
the age of thirty-three, it is 19,400; at the age of thirty-eight,
it is 23,870; at the age of forty-three, it is 26,260; at the age of
forty-eight, it is 26,140; at the age of fifty-three, it is 27,060;
at the age of fifty-eight, it is 36,980; at the age of sixty-three,
it is 57,000; at the age of sixty-eight, it is 108,040; at the age of
seventy-three and upwards, it is 317,230. The prevalence of sickness
is not an exact and invariable measure of the intensity of mortality;
but there is a close connexion between them, as is manifest from
the progressively increasing amount of sickness, as age advances.
Thus, in the first ten years from the age of twenty-three to that of
thirty-three, there is no increase of sickness, its prevalence is
all but identically the same; in the next ten years from the age of
thirty-three to that of forty-three, the increase of sickness, as
compared with that of the preceding decade, is 6,860; in the next ten
years from the age of forty-three to that of fifty-three, the increase
is only 800; in the next ten years from the age of fifty-three to
that of sixty-three, the increase is 29,940, while from the age of
sixty-three to seventy-three, it is 260,230.
Such are the results derived from the experience of disease considered
in the aggregate, all its varied forms taken together. I am enabled
further to present an exact and most instructive proof, that one
particular disease which, in this point of view, may be considered
as more important than any other, because it is the grand agent of
death, namely fever, carries on its ravages in a ratio which steadily
and uniformly increases as the age of its victim advances. Having
submitted the experience of the London Fever Hospital for the ten
years preceding January 1834, an observation including nearly 6,000
patients affected with this malady, to Mr. Finlaison, it was subjected
by him to calculation. Among other curious and instructive results to
be stated hereafter, it was found that the mortality of fever resolves
itself into the following remarkable progression. Thus suppose 100,000
patients to be attacked with this disease between the ages of 5 and
16, of these there would die - 8,266 and of an equal number
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