USEFUL INFORMATION.
Negro Vital Statistics.
It is a fact that the death rate among the colored people of the United States is greater since than before the war, and that it is far in excess of the white race, often doubling it.
Consumption and pneumonia are the diseases which are mowing down the ranks of our colored population. "In Charleston, S. C., the number of deaths from consumption for 1882-5 were 830 colored to 234 white; Memphis, Tenn., 471 colored to 323 white; Savannah, Ga., 391 colored to 212 white; Nashville, Tenn., 330 colored to 232 white. The mortality from pneumonia for the same period stands: Charleston, S. C., 219 colored to 85 white; Memphis, Tenn., 262 colored to 159 white; Savannah, Ga., 166 colored to 60 white; Nashville, Tenn., 155 colored to 100 white. The difference is also excessive in heart diseases, dropsy, scrofula, venereal diseases, and, when prevalent, from small-pox."
"In Savannah, Ga., in 1885, 7 whites and 114 blacks died without having a physician in attendance; in 1883, 6 whites and 145 blacks. Moreover, the fact should not be ignored that numbers of negroes are also the victims of empiricism and experiment. Some poor negroes are undoubtedly sacrificed for the benefit of science." This is the case all over the country.
Scrofula is said to be more fatal to mulattoes than to Negroes, and more deadly to both than to whites. It is seven times greater among colored than whites.
I believe, also, that the prevalence of scrofula among the Negroes is promoted by the immense quantities of meat consumed by them, to the exclusion of a sufficient quantity of vegetable food. I am led to this conclusion for two reasons: firstly, so far as I have been able to ascertain, scrofula is rarely found among the native Africans, whose diet is purely vegetable; seldom do they eat meat. Again, from a recent medical journal, I learn that the Esquimaux, whose diet is exclusively meat, usually die between the ages of 30 and 45, and among them scrofula is exceedingly prevalent.—Conrad.