1881.] Jlfr. A. Buchan on the Weather and Health of London. G2'J 



WEEKLY EVENING MEETING, 

 Friday, March 25, 1881. 



Warren De La Rue, Esq. D.C.L. F.R.S. Secretary and Vice-President, 



Cor. Mem. Acad, des Sciences, France, 

 in the Chair. 



Alexander Buohan, Esq. M.A. F.R.S.E. 



Sec. Scot. Met. Soc. 



The Weather and Health of London. 



To the statistician London affords materials for the prosecution of 

 many inquiries such as couKi not be obtained from the statistics of 

 any other city either in ancient or modern times. Among the more 

 important of these inquiries are those which relate to questions sug- 

 gested by the enormous aggregation of human beings over a limited 

 area which London presents on a scale absolutely unparalleled in tho 

 world's history. It is one of these questions we bring before you this 

 evening, viz. the influence of the climate on the health of the people 

 of London. 



The relation of weather to health is a question which lias engaged 

 the attention of Dr. Arthur Mitchell and myself for many years. In 

 an early stage of the inquiry our attention was mainly directed to 

 Scotland, and more particularly to the data supplied by its eight 

 large towns ; but it was soon found that, owing to the sparseness and 

 other conditions of the population, and to tlio division of time into 

 months only, adopted by the Registrar-General for Scotland, the avail- 

 able data were not sufficiently exact to show the true relations of 

 weather to the fluctuations of the death-rate through the year. In truth 

 it was only after not a little unsuccessful labour, and what could at 

 best be characterised as no more than partially successful work, that wo 

 resolved eight years ago to open tho discussion of the whole subject 

 by an exhaustive examination of the meteorological and vital statistics 

 of London and London alone. More specifically our reasons for tho 

 selection of London were that it afforded data from (1) an enormous 

 population spread over an area so limited that it might be regarded as 

 having one uniform climate during each of tho seasons of the year ; 

 (2) satisfactorily full weekly reports of weather and the dcatlis from 

 the different diseases ; and (3) returns extending over a sufiiciently 

 long time. 



In the case of diseases such as diarrhoea and bronchitis, which seem 

 to be directly and immediately under the influence of temperature, 

 and such epidemics as scarlet fever and whooping-cough, the rate of 



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