Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/163

 male population are peculiarly exposed to causes destructive of health, it is to be expected that the proportional longevity of the females should be increased beyond the usual ratio; and this ought to hold good in the mining districts of Cornwall, where the deleterious effects of mining are almost exclusively confined to the male sex. Accordingly we find from the Table above mentioned, that the proportion of the sexes that attain their 80th year, is, in the agricultural districts, as 153 females to 100 males, while, in the mining districts, the proportion is as great as 231 to 100 males.

Precisely similar results are obtained from the comparison of the number of the two sexes alive, at an advanced age, among the two classes, as shown by Table XXI. from which it appears that while the proportion of males to females, above 60 years of age, is, in the agricultural parishes, as 5 to 6, it is, in the mining parishes, as 5 to 8, the totals being as follows:─

And this result is still more strikingly and more unequivocally confirmed, by comparing the two neighbouring Hundreds of Penwith and Kerrier, as is done in Table XXII. These differ in no particular respects that could influence health, except in their relation, to mining.

Whilst in the Hundred of Penwith, the proportion of miners to the other classes is as 79 to 100, it is, in Kerrier, only as 43 to 100. If, then, mining is peculiarly destructive to the male sex, we ought to find