The Colored Race 153 



among the colored. In other words, in 1854 about 5 per cent. 

 of whites died of yellow fever, and only one-eighth of one per 

 cent, of colored, while in 1876 about 4^ per cent, of whites 

 died and very nearly one per cent, of colored. Of course these 

 figures are only approximately correct as no account has been 

 taken of the exodus from the cit}^ at these times of peril. These 

 figures will be seen in a table giving the consolidated mortuary 

 record of Savannah from 1854 to 1886 inclusive, which I shall 

 introduce later, and which also shows the better physical 

 status of the negro before emancipation. 



The great strides which have been made in recent years in 

 the etiology of disease through bacteriological research have 

 thrown much light upon susceptibility to disease, the predis- 

 position to certain morbid processes which some have more 

 than others. And this investigation helps as greatly in the 

 study of racial tendencies. In Europe where so much has 

 been done in this way geographical areas and nations living 

 under their different conditions can be mapped out on patho- 

 logical lines. This same work is being done in America, and 

 it cannot be very long before the colored race and its relations 

 to the inimical factors which produce disease and death, will 

 be better understood. 



The susceptibility of the colored to tuberculosis is now gen- 

 erally recognized ; in other words they succumb to the bacillus 

 tuberculosis. To pneumonia, another germ disease, they also 

 quickly succumb, and on this line I have but to repeat what I 

 have already said in treating of the different diseases. 



Recent researches are showing us that the various patho- 

 logical processes in the production of tumors, and especially 

 the malignant growths, are the direct outcome of minute or- 

 ganic forms, certain fungi and protozoa, and it cannot be long 

 before we shall know definitely the proximate causes of the 

 many varieties of carcinoma and sarcoma, diseases which are, 

 according to English statistics, on the increase. The figures 

 at my disposal are too small to have any value ; so far as they 

 go they show that the whites are still more liable to cancer 

 than the colored. The tenth census states: "In males the 

 proportion of deaths per 100,000 of living population is, for 



