Essays on rural hygiene / by George Vivian Poore.

  • Poore, George Vivian.
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essays on rural hygiene / by George Vivian Poore. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

    26/372 (page 14)
    centration of population must tend towards the deterio- ration of our race, and there can be no doubt that the diminution of the evils of such concentration is a subject which demands very earnest attention. We all of us have to run more or less risk in earning our living. Some enter the army or navy, some go to tropical coun- tries, some become file-grinders, hotel servants, or doctors, and it is not, perhaps, desirable that the bread- winners should look too narrowly at the risks connected with their daily work. Every prudent man, however, will endeavour to secure vigorous health for his wife and children; and, whenever it can he avoided, these should not he called upon to run unnecessary risks. The Registrar-General’s returns show that for every 100 deaths in country districts there ar^ about 120 deaths in towns, and that the death-rate of children under five, per 1,000 living at that age, was (in the year 1890) 66-5 in Lancashire and 65-2 in London, as against 30'3 in Dorsetshire, 31-1 in Wiltshire, 31-8 in Berkshire, 31-2 in Rutlandshire, 35‘8 in Herefordshire, 35-3 in Shropshire, 35-8 in Hampshire, 3G-4 in Oxfordshire, 37-5 in Bedfordshire, 36‘0 in Sussex, and 39*3 in Somersetshire ; and, although the infant mortality was higher in the other counties having a more urban character, in none of them (except Lancashire and London) did it exceed 57'5. It is thus evident that the risk to children under five is twice as great in London and Lancashire as it is in some of the rural districts. How many children are crippled for life by infantile diseases contracted in towns we have no means of know- ing. Death-rates are nowadays the subject of perennial paragraphs in the newspapers, they are systemati- cally used for puffing localities, and are beginning to form a recognised feature in auctioneers’ advertisements.