OF DURHAM AND NORTHUMBERLAND. 209 
occasion to treat a few cases of renal calculi, but I never saw a 
ease of Bright’s disease ina pitman. That the disease is not 
uncommon in the district may be known from the fact that 
at the time I write I have five patients under treatment for 
albuminuria, and three of them the wives of pitmen; and here 
again we find the salutary nature of the pitman’s work in the 
mine, and his cleanly habits at home, freeing him from another 
formidable and fatal disorder. I fail to trace any particular 
liability to disease of the brain, unless the stooping position may 
tend to produce apoplexy. 260 deaths eccur from diseases of 
the stomach and liver. Gastric and hepatic derangements are 
by no means uncommon, owing to excesses at the “ pay,” irre- 
gularities in diet, and smoking tobacco, but pitmen are not 
more liable to indisposition from these causes than tradesmen or 
mechanics. From diseases of the joints we have only 37 deaths | 
out of the 7,434, showing that their joints, though hardly dealt 
with, do not often suffer. The deaths from zymotic diseases are 
not numerous, when we deduct 810 arising from cholera and diarr- 
heea, which prevailed as epidemics during that period. They visit 
much amongst each other, and a contagious epidemic is apt to 
spread through the whole village; but owing to the construction 
of the cottages, and the fires being kept constantly burning, the 
ventilation is good, and consequently the rate of mortality from 
infectious disorders is low. In my neighbourhood the trees 
incline towards the east, and I infer from this that the most 
prevalent winds are west; the rows of cottages should therefore 
be built running east and west. Those thus placed, and on 
elevated ground, were observed to be the most healthy. 
But, as formerly stated, this table has been constructed from 
nineteen mining districts. Those districts have been classed 
into four groups:—1. Cornish districts; 2. Staffordshire dis- 
tricts; 3. Northumberland and Durham districts; and 4. South 
Wales districts. On examination of those groups we find the 
South Wales districts the most unhealthy, and the Northumber- 
land and Durham districts the most healthy. To every 100 
miners of the aggregate of the four groups of the mining districts 
living at fifteen years and upwards, the annual deaths are 1:811; 
