Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/295

 Rh occurrence among miners, than in other classes of the community. The proportion of miners affected with this disease, and that die of it, for they all die, was variously calculated as 1 in 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, by the local practitioners. It is sufficient to observe here, that if the disease exists among the other classes of the community in the same proportion as elsewhere, it follows, as a matter of course, the nature of their mode of life being considered, that it must be more prevalent among miners, inasmuch as they have many additional causes of pulmonary disease to which the rest of the people are not obnoxious.

It will be observed that, in the Dispensary Report, I have classed hæmoptysis and consumption together; and although the former disease unquestionably may, and does exist independently of the latter, still the proportion of cases of pure hæmoptysis is so small as not greatly to vitiate the conclusions deduced from such a document. These give the proportion of consumptive cases to other diseases, as one in 29.7, a considerably smaller proportion, than was observed at London or Plymouth, at both of which places the proportion was nearly the same, viz. 1 in 19.7 in London, and 1 in 19.6 at Plymouth. Unfortunately, I am deprived of the surer test of prevalence on the large scale, namely, that of the relative mortality from the disease; but, as far as can be gathered from the obituary of the two parishes of St. Paul and St. Hilary, we may infer that although very considerable, still the proportion of deaths from consumption does not differ much from the mean of Carlisle, London, and