Human Physiology. 1 1 



the average death-rate is 29 to 30 per 1000 per annum. This 

 means that in none of these countries do the people live on an 

 average thirty years. In the cool and sparsely-peopled Scan- 

 dinavian countries, the average life is forty-four years. But for 

 lust and drunkenness, it would be sixty years. In Belgium, 

 with the densest population of Europe, the death-rate is the 

 same as in France and England 22 in 1000; while in Ireland 

 and Scotland, two of the healthiest countries in the world, the 

 death-rate is 17 in 1000. The lowest death-rate in the 

 healthiest rural districts of England is n per 1000; and even 

 here there is a considerable proportion of preventable mortality. 

 All do not die of old age. But if we take n per 1000 as the 

 minimum, or a fair approximation to healthful life and natural 

 mortality, what shall we say of the national average, 22 per 

 1000 just double; or of the mortality of such towns as Liver- 

 pool and Manchester, where the death-rate rises at times to 45 

 per 1000? 



In the metropolis, the general death-rate is about 24 in 

 1000 ; but it varies very widely in different districts. In the 

 West End, and many of the suburbs of London, such as 

 Hampstead, Highgate, Campden Hill, Kensington, Brompton, 

 Clapham, Brixton, where there is a gravelly soil, good drainage, 

 open spaces, and a wealthy and intelligent population, the 

 death-rate is not above 15 in 1000; and, but for the mews and 

 slums into which the poorer clashes are crowded even in the 

 best districts, would be still lower as low perhaps as the 

 minimum in the rural districts. But in the centre and East of 

 London, in St. Giles's, Gray's Inn Road, Lambeth, Bethnal 

 Green, and a score of similar districts, the mortality is as great 

 as anywhere in England. 



A map of the metropolis shaded according to the rate of 

 mortality, would be very light, with dark spots here and there, 

 over a large area; while certain portions, perhaps one-fifth of 

 the whole, would be the blackness of darkness. And in these 



