Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/167



Before pointing out more particularly some of the strongest evidences supplied by these Tables, of the great longevity of the agricultural population of the Landsend, it may be proper to give some explanation of the data from which the column in the preceding Tables, entitled "three Landsend parishes, or purely agricultural," has been framed, lest I should be attaching more importance to this document than it is really entitled to.

The three parishes of Buryan, Sennen, and St. Leven, are the westernmost of the district, and, consequently, of England, and are, in the immediate neighbourhood of the promontory, termed the Landsend. They constitute a flat table-land overlooking the ocean, with lofty and precipitous shores. The soil is dry and fertile, and they contain a large proportion of corn-land. They are purely agricultural, and are the only parishes in the Hundred which contain no miners. Sennen and St. Levan, however, contain a few fishermen, and Buryan a few miners, principally streamers. They contain 10576 statute acres, and, in 1821, the number of inhabitants, by the census, was 2622, viz. 1223 males, and 1399 females. The documents from which the columns respecting the deaths, in these three parishes, in the Tables are constructed, are abstracts of the burial registers during a period of eight years, viz, from 1813 to 1820 inclusive, during which time the total deaths were 273.

Considering the extent and population of these three parishes, and the length of the period for which