EVOLUTION AGAINST DISEASE 143 



were not subject to cough, before imprisonment. I find that 

 after they have been working a few weeks or months on the 

 roads here, and inhabiting the gaol, they have become subject 

 to attacks of inflammation of the lungs, and from time to time 

 to frequent repetitions of these attacks, which have ended in 

 some cases ... in death in the acute stage, in others in a 

 prostrate sinking state with a gradual wasting away of the 

 body, and all the symptons and ultimately all the post-mortem 

 morbid appearances of tubercular disease of the lungs/ Next 

 to the hard labour Green lays most stress on the bad ventila- 

 tion of the cells, and on the highly defective construction of 

 the prison in other respects. 



230. " The great frequency of consumption in prison may 

 seem to be due to the prisoners bringing the disease with 

 them ; but that such is not the case follows from the well- 

 authenticated fact that most of the deaths from phthisis 

 among prisoners do not occur until the later years of the 

 term of their confinement. At Milbank Penitentiary signs 

 of a pulmonary affection on admission could be made out, 

 as Baley tell us, in only 12 among 1,502 prisoners who 

 entered in 1842, and in only 15 among 3,249 who were 

 received in 1844. Among the convicts of 1842 there were 

 510 women sentenced to transportation who remained at 

 Milbank not longer than three months, and of these two fell 

 ill of phthisis or scrofula during that time ; whereas of the 

 remaining prisoners admitted no fewer than 47 became 

 consumptive before the completion of their term of two or 

 two-and-a-half years. It is further to be kept in mind that 

 most of the convicts sent to Milbank had already served 

 longer or shorter terms of imprisonment elsewhere, and not a 

 few of them more than one term ; so that in a certain pro- 

 portion of those who were found phthisical on admission to 

 the central prison the seeds of the disease might have been 

 implanted while they were undergoing sentence previously. 



231. " There is no doubt that prisoners are exposed to a 

 large number of noxious influences capable of affecting their 

 health or of creating more or less of predisposition to take 

 phthisis, or of augmenting a predisposition already there, and 

 among these a bad or insufficient diet, as we have already 

 seen, might play a not unimportant part. But even under 

 these circumstances it is evident that the real factor is a 

 protracted detention, with brief remissions, in crowded and 

 ill-ventilated work-rooms and sleeping-places. That is the 

 one detrimental thing which obtains with more or less 

 uniformity in all penal establishments, whatever difference 



