NO. I AIR AND TUBERCULOSIS HINSDALE 53 



is said to be " too strong " and certainly for an all-the-year-round resi- 

 dence the capes and headlands are too much at the mercy of high 

 winds which render out-door life disagreeable. About Cape Cod, 

 Nantucket, and Martha's Vineyard there is a peculiar liability to fog 

 which is as unwelcome to the consumptive as it is to the mariner. 



The author has had experience with the fogs in these waters and 

 considers it one of the great drawbacks to an otherwise agreeable 

 climate. The summer and early autumn fogs of the eastern Maine 

 coast and of the Bay of Fundy and Nova Scotia are worse in their 

 chilly and penetrating qualities. The towns of Massachusetts on or 

 near the seacoast seem to have somewhat more tuberculosis than 

 those of the interior. 



Deaths from Pulmonary Tuberculosis in Massachusetts per 100,000 



Population 



Five Maritime Towns Five Inland Towns 



1903 1908-1912 1905 1908-1912 



Boston 224 155 Pittsfield 168 98 



Salem 154 iii Springfield 125 89 



New Bedford 164 124 Cliicopee 125 109 



Newburyport 181 131 Holyoke 154 I3I 



Plymouth 162 90 North Adams 81 98 



Average 177 122 Average 131 105 



Mr. Hiram F. Mills, of the Massachusetts State Board of Health, 

 has lately published a most painstaking analysis of the mortality 

 from tuberculosis in all the towns and cities of that state.^ 



He shows that there are sixty cities and towns bordering on the 

 sea having a total population of about one-third of the entire state, 

 or 1,293,625, in which the average death-rate per 100,000 for the five 

 years, 1908-1912, was 135. During this period the rate for the entire 

 state was 131. Omitting Boston, which has peculiar conditions, 

 from both calculations the rate was 11 1 for the remaining 59 mari- 

 time towns and cities against 124 for the remainder of the State. 

 This throws the balance in favor of the seaboard. It should be 

 noted that all the small and sparsely settled towns have low rates 

 in almost regular gradation when compared with more and more 

 populated districts. 



Boston has had a noteworthy decrease in its tuberculosis death 

 rate as shown by the following figures representing the rate for the 

 last five years, namely, 271, 283, 254, 176, 182, or a decrease of one- 

 third in five years. There are sixteen small towns having an aggre- 



^ Address to the State Inspectors of Massachusetts, November 3, 1913. 

 6 



