Statistics. 355 



in the Madras Presidency of India, it is more frequent at the 

 Cape of Good Hope than in the northern States of America, 

 nearly even in Britain and in British North America, 

 nearly the same at Gibraltar as in the West Indies gene- 

 rally, and more fatal among European troops in Jamaica. 

 Remittent fever shows an almost regularly progressive increase 

 w^ith the increase of temperature from the North States of 

 America to Jamaica, where the deaths, among Europeans, 

 amount to 102, and among the black troops, only 8 per 1000. 

 Of diseases in the digestive organs, in the United States the 

 number of cases is 526, and deaths 14 per 1000 ; while in 

 Britain the cases are 95 per 1000, and the deaths only 1 in 

 2000 of the population. 



Rheumatism is most prominent in Britain and least in 

 Malta. In Asia it is least among Europeans in the Tenas- 

 serim provinces, and greatest in the Madras. 



The influence of climate is most powerfully evinced in the 

 mental and physical degradation produced by malaria on the 

 inhabitants of the moor and marshy districts of tropical re- 

 gions ; but, even in Europe, its eflfect on the amount of 

 mortality is much greater than is generally understood. 

 Thus in the smiling plains of southern Italy the rate of 

 mortality is nearly twice as great as in the cold region of 

 Scandinavia ; and this proportion appears to be held in all 

 countries. 



Temperature alone has a great effect on the production of 

 disease ; the Registrar-General calculates that a fall of the 

 mean temperature of the air from 45 deg. to 4 or 5 deg. be- 

 low zero, destroys from 300 to 500 of the population of London. 



In order to judge of the effects of the climate it is neces- 

 sary to compare the amount of sickness and mortality among 

 the indigenous population of a country with that of strangers 

 to the soil. Now, we find that in all India the average 

 amount of mortality among European troops is nearly three 

 times as great as among natives, that while seventy-five per 

 cent, of the European troops died at the Gamola, the morta- 

 lity among the black troops was little more than two per 

 cent. ; that the number of deaths from cholera in India is 

 twice as great among Europeans as among natives, that the 



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