Years.Deaths.Population.Proportion of Deaths to the Population.
18331,48249,3551 in 33·3
18341,65051,3551 in 31·1
18351,67353,3551 in 31·9
18361,92355,3551 in 28·8
18371,96357,3551 in 29·2
18391,51159,3551 in 39·3
18391,76359,3551 in 33·7
11,965385,4851 in 32·2

Thus, the average mortality in Dundee, during the last seven years, was 1 in 32 annually. * * * Here, then, in Dundee, the deaths annually are at least one-fourth more than over the rest of Scotland, Glasgow excepted, which seems to surpass Dundee in the waste of human life. If the deaths are a fourth greater, those diseases which are its harbingers must be many times greater than the deaths; and to this extent, at least, it was in the power of human means to have provided a remedy,—to have abated by one-fourth the physical suffering and mortality of Dundee, saved 2,952 persons from fever, and 328 persons from premature death, and reduced by a fourth part the pecuniary loss incurred during the last seven years,—in other words, to have saved 43,919l., or 6,274l. annually, to the profit and loss account of this city in the single item of fever.

“The statistics of small-pox in Dundee might be added to this bill of charges. It is sufficient, however, to allude to it. Last year, the deaths by small-pox were 77. In 1838, they were also 77; and in 1837, they amounted to 126. The number of cases, of course, must have been many times the deaths; by far the greater number under age and unvaccinated,—a neglect no longer confined to the Irish population.

“Though I am no medical authority, yet I am sure that I have every medical authority with me when I connect, as foremost amongst the causes of the enormous Fever Bill of Dundee that monstrous Tavern Bill, which last lecture I showed you was the worm in the bud of the happiness and well-being of its working classes. That Tavern Bill, according to the mean of three different estimates, amounts to 21,234l. a-year in my parish alone, and to 180,000l. a-year to all Dundee. In vain we cry out against the taxation of Government. While the words of complaint are on our lips, here is a vice of continual tasting and tippling in strong drink,—a private self-imposed tax, but heavier far than any public tax. It is this besetting sin that has been not only devouring the substance of the poor, but every year sowing the seeds of that enormous Fever Bill which for the last seven years has been taxing us, not only in purse but in person,—compelling every tenth man in Dundee during that period to pay the wages of six weeks’ labour, and to suffer all the langour, sickness, and oppression of six weeks’ fever, besides the bereaved widows and orphans, and the fatherless and motherless children it has left in Dundee.”

I now proceed to submit the reasons for believing that the immediate expenditure of so much money as would be incurred by the adoption of such of the remedial measures as appear to be available by the agency of any public administration would be sound measures of immediate economy, and of ultimate public gain: and also the grounds for believing that the same conclusion is applicable to the cost of those measures of prevention which, though directly or indirectly controllable by legislative authority, are within the province of private individuals to execute, such as the construction of the dwellings of the labouring classes.

VI.—EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECTS OF PREVENTIVE MEASURES IN RAISING THE STANDARD OF HEALTH AND THE CHANCES OF LIFE.

On viewing the evidence, which shows that, in most situations higher chances of life belong to the middle and higher classes of the population, an impression may be created that the higher standards of health are essentially connected with expensive modes of living. The highest medical authorities agree, however, that the more important means for the protection and advance of the health of those classes must be in still further reductions than those which it is the present tendency in the higher classes of society to make of the use of highly stimulating food. The evidence already adduced with respect to the labouring classes in the rural districts and those living on high wages in towns, will have gone some way to remove the erroneous impression with respect to them, and it admits of proof that a higher standard of health and comfort is attainable for them even at a less expense than that in which they now live in disease and misery. The experience of the effect of sanitary measures in the royal navy may be adduced as evidence of the practicable standards of health consistent with great labour and exposure to weather obtained at a cost not higher than that within the wages of ordinary labourers. The experience of the effects of sanitary measures in banishing spontaneous disease from crowded prisons, offers further evidence of the health obtainable by simple means, under circumstances still more unfavourable.

The prisons were formerly distinguished for their filth, and their bad ventilation; but the descriptions given by Howard of the worst prisons he visited in England (which he states were amongst the worst he had seen in Europe) were exceeded in every wynd in Edinburgh and Glasgow, inspected by Dr. Arnott and myself, in company with the municipal officers of those cities. More filth, worse physical suffering and moral disorder than Howard describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be found amongst the cellar population of the working people of Liverpool, Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions of the metropolis. As a standard of the progress made in ameliorating the condition of prisoners, I refer to his general statement of the condition in which he found the prisons when he inspected them in England.

“Water.—Many prisons have no water. This defect is frequent in bridewells and town gaols. In the felons’ courts of some county gaols there is no water: in some places where there is water, prisoners are always locked up within doors, and have no more than the keeper or his servants think fit to bring them.