ON THE VITAL STATISTICS OF LARGE TOWNS IN SCOTLAND. 203 



i 

 of Edinburgh and Perth are more like each other as to the nature of their 

 employments, should intemperance on the part of the males be a principal 

 cause of the difference in male and female deaths, then the proportion of in- 

 temperance should be as five in Edinburgh to two in Perth. 



Whatever may be the influence of intemperance in producing a high 

 rate of mortality, both by the direct effects it produces on the human frame 

 and by the destitution and misery which result from it, there are too many 

 cases of extreme destitution in the towns of Scotland, arising from causes 

 beyond the control of the sufferers, and for which there is no adequate re- 

 lief provided by law. The effect of destitution in producing disease and 

 death, seems to be admitted by all writers on the subject. Differences may 

 arise as to the particular disease or diseases most affected by it ; but all 

 agree, that where a great degree of destitution exists, there is to be found 

 a high amount of mortality. 



It is especially to be observed with regard to the years of severe depression 

 of trade, that the case of the really destitute poor in the manufacturing towns 

 of Scotland is not then so bad as during the years of ordinary prosperity. Many 

 of the better class of operatives require to submit to a much greater degree of 

 suffering and privation than they are accustomed to, and the effects of these 

 privations are much to be dreaded in the event of an unhealthy season set- 

 ting in upon them. But the extraordinary exertions made by subscriptions 

 from the more wealthy inhabitants, and from public funds, to supply food 

 and clothing to the poor — by means of soup-kitchens, distribution of old 

 clothes and otherwise, over and above the ordinary parochial relief, — often 

 renders the condition of the really destitute much better at these times than 

 it is under ordinary circumstances. We cannot, therefore, form such a cor- 

 rect judgment of the effects of destitution during these years on the mortality 

 of large towns in Scotland as is generally imagined. 



Were the local distribution of the population in towns the same as in 

 Edinburgh and Glasgow, where the rich and the poor are found to occupy 

 distinct districts, a more correct knowledge of the mortality among the dif- 

 ferent classes of the people would be come to than has yet. been obtained. 

 In the report of Monsieur Villerme, in vol. x. of Archives Generates, it is 

 shown, that in the three districts of Paris in which the mortality is least the 

 inhabitants are the wealthiest, and in the three districts in which the inhabit- 

 ants are the poorest the mortality is the greatest. 



In a valuable paper *, " On the best means of supplying the poor with 

 cheap and nutritious food," read to the Philosophical Society of Glasgow by 

 Dr. R. D. Thomson, he says, — " We trust the day is fast approaching when 

 the light of science will enable the guardians of the poor to manage our po- 

 verty-stricken fellow-men by precise and definite rules, and will teach all 

 classes of the community that the quantity of vital air supplied by the 

 Creator to man is based on fixed laws which require the imbibition of a cer- 

 tain amount of food. An adult consumes every day 30^ ounces of oxygen 

 or vital air from the atmosphere. To consume this, and to convert it into 

 carbonic acid, he requires, according to Liebig, about 13 ounces of carbon, 

 in the form of food. If the food is withheld, the carbon must be supplied 

 from the muscles and substance of the body ; the latter becomes thinner and 

 weaker, and, like an expiring taper, is extinguished by the influence of the most 

 trivial causes." Dr. Thomson, after noticing the amount of deaths in England 

 by starvation, or purely from want of food, also says, " how many persons 

 died by piecemeal starvation, or by disease engendered by bad food or want 



* See Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgow, Fourteenth Session, 184] -42. 



