A REPORT ON THE DIETARIES 



adequate in many cases to the maintenance of the body in physi- 

 cal and muscular health and strength, any improvement upon 

 such a state of the social condition of this class of the population 

 would be most invaluable, seeing there can be no doubt that an 

 insufficient supply of the nourishment required by the animal 

 wants of the body is productive of an impaired condition of 

 health, derangement of the functions of the system and conse- 

 quent disease, and in extreme cases, where the absence of proper 

 nutriment reaches the point of privation, of starvation and 

 death. Without, however, going so far as to expect to find in 

 the low-fed population of the country extreme cases of starva- 

 tion, even in isolated instances, to be common, there can be no 

 doubt that we may naturally expect to hear of some families 

 amongst the poorer classes in remote rural districts, who do 

 not feed themselves adequately. This idea receives an appear- 

 ance of truth, when we find in some places in the agricultural 

 mainland of Scotland, that the death-rate of the population is 

 far above what it might be expected to be, considering the salu- 

 brity of the situation ; while in those localities also, many of the 

 peasantry who do survive to advanced years are generally martyrs 

 to chronic catarrh and rheumatism ; and although, doubtless, 

 the ailments referred to arise in great measure from the pea- 

 sant's regardlessness of exposure to cold and damp, still an 

 insufficient diet may have much to do with the matter, and it is 

 therefore quite fair to infer that, with more attention to a proper 

 and adequate dietary, or by an assimilation of the dietary of these 

 districts to those of other quarters similarly situated, where the 

 mortality exhibits a decreased ratio, the death-rate of the low- 

 fed population would be lessened. Take, for example, and by 

 way of comparison between two districts where a dissimilar 

 dietary prevails, the following statistical figures, calculated from 

 the "Eighth Detailed Annual Report of the Registrar-General of 

 Births, Deaths, and Marriages in Scotland, 1866." In the agri- 

 cultural districts of Moffat (Dumfriesshire), the salubrity of 

 which cannot be denied, the percentage of deaths is 1/747 ; in 

 Glencairn parish (Dumfriesshire), it is 2142; in Kirkmabreck 

 district (Kirkcudbrightshire), it is as high as 2755 ; and in the 

 rural portion of Newton-Stewart parish (Wigtonshire), it is 1'945. 

 In all these localities the fare of the agricultural classes is very 

 poor and scanty, and the use of peasemeal is almost unknown. 

 On the other hand, in the Border counties to the eastward, where 

 the diet is more liberal, and the use of peasemeal, rendered 

 palatable by admixture with barley-meal, is very common, if not 

 general, and forms a considerable portion of the daily food 

 of the same classes, we find the death-rate is a good deal lower. 

 In the parish of Traquair (Peeblesshire), for example, it is 

 only 1-018 per cent. ; in Druinelzier (Peeblesshire), it is 1435 



