EVOLUTION AGAINST DISEASE 149 



40*74, and in the Maryland Penitentiary 28*49, while among 

 the coloured population living at large in New York it was 

 11 per 1,000. At Wilmington, N.C., 0'9 of the whites died 

 of phthisis in 1880, and of the blacks 2'6 (Wood). ' It is a 

 remarkable fact/ says Bartolacci in his work on Ceylon, ' that 

 of 9,000 Kaffirs (Negroes from the East Coast of Africa) who 

 had been imported at various times by the Dutch Govern- 

 ment into Ceylon, and had been drafted into regiments, 

 scarcely a trace of their descendants remains ; and they 

 would certainly not be recognized at all among the present 

 population of the island. In the years 1813 and 1810 the 

 British Government imported three or four thousand Negroes 

 from Mozambique into Ceylon to form into regiments ; of 

 these in December 1820 there were left just 440, including 

 male descendants/ 



245. " Whether this preponderance of phthisis among 

 Negroes is an affair of physiological predisposition due to 

 their nationality, or to what extent it may be so due, we are 

 unable to decide. It is certain, however, that the amount 

 of disease increases considerably among Negroes away from 

 their native countries, an increase that depends in part upon 

 the ^manner of living. The extent to which a change of 

 climate may operate in that direction will appear from the 

 phthisis mortality among Negro troops in the British service 

 at certain military stations. 



COMPARATIVE TABLE OF PHTHISIS AMONG BRITISH 

 AND NEGRO TROOPS. 



246. " Here we have confirmation of the well-known fact 

 that the migration of the Negro to a colder climate is 

 accompanied by a rise in the phthisical average ; but it is 

 obvious that we should make an allowance for the changed 

 habits of living as weighing not less in the scale. Prunel 

 calls attention to a fact that has a bearing on the question, 

 namely, that at Khartoum, in latitude 17 N., with a temper- 

 ature not lower than that of the mountains around, consump- 

 tion ensues among the Negro captives as well as among 

 the Arabs of the desert, whenever they give up their 



