Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/322

 220

B. Of those in good health—

Of those affected with dyspnasa and pain of chest—

C. The actual distribution of the ages through the different periods of life, among 120 working miners, is as follows:-

Thus, out of 120 men, 5 only, or 1-24th part, are found capable of active labour beyond the 50th year, and 40, or 1-3rd, are already affected with a disease which will, in all likelihood, carry them to a premature grave; corroborating, in a striking manner, the statistical results in the former part of this paper, viz. how small is the proportion of this class of men found beyond the middle periods of life.

D. It appears that a very considerable proportion of these men, viz. 10 (or 1-12th), are subject habitually to pains in the stomach or bowels; a circumstance well worthy of notice relatively to what we shall find the general opinion of the medical men of this district, as to the character of the pectoral diseases of miners, viz. its marked complication with dyspeptic symptoms.

4. The unanimous testimony of the whole profession, in the west of Cornwall, goes to establish the great comparative unhealthiness of miners, and the premature death of a great proportion of them from diseases occasioned by their mode of life. Perhaps