TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 183 



that difficulties and serious expense should be made to attend any such inquiiT, 

 and that in the absence of any reliable information on the part of the Registrar- 

 General, and on the part of the local authorities in om' large towns, as to the sani- 

 tary condition of those towns, no effort should be made to facilitate the examination 

 of the documents which can alone, under the present system, give the most essen- 

 tial information. The death-rate in the parish of Cheltenham varies in a most 

 remarkable manner, from as high as 22-2 to the low figure of 15-6 ; the average for 

 ten years being 19-29, which, if the deaths in the General Hospital and Union 

 Workhouse be excluded, gives a result very slightly in excess of the standard nor- 

 thern districts as determined by Dr. Greenhow. In 1840-41-42 the death-rate 

 for the district was 23 in the 1000, a figure which has not been reached since the 

 improved drainage has been carried out in the town. Cheltenham has always 

 enjoyed a remai'kable immimity from zymotic disease. Deaths fi-om small-pox, 

 scarlatina, measles, typhus, diarrhoea, dysentery, and cholera are much below the 

 average for the kingdom, and these are the diseases which are now usually held as 

 tests of the sanitary condition of a town. There are stiU deaths from small-pox, 

 however, in sufficient mmibers to make it a formidable foe, and to convict a people 

 of culpable neglect. For though the deaths from this disease daring the ten years 

 1850-1861 were in Cheltenham district only 92 in 10,000 living under five years of 

 age, whilst in England and Wales there were 103, it must not be forgotten that 

 in 44 registration districts there were no deaths from this cause under five years, 

 and that in 279 disti-icts the deaths were under 50. Of the deaths from all causes 

 in the Cheltenham district, no less than one-fifth occur in children under one year 

 of age, and nearly one-third in children who have just completed their fifth year. 

 This mortality would seem to be due, in part, to ignorance and neglect on the part 

 of the mothers ; but that it also depends on inherited weakness, poverty, and mal- 

 nutrition appears plain from the excessive number of deaths at early ages due to 

 tabes mesenterica and brain-disease, including hydrocephalus. In diseases of the 

 respiratoiy organs, including phthisis, the Cheltenham district shows a favourable 

 comparison with the averages for the whole kingdom — for Gloucester and for 

 Clifton — a result which could scarcely be expected when the number of invalids 

 frequenting the town is taken into consideration. Rheumatism is prevalent in the 

 district, especially in villages round the town lying on the undrained clay, and its 

 effects are visible in the excessive number of deaths from diseases of the heart and 

 dropsy. Diseases of the brain, including hydrocephalus, are also prevalent between 

 the ages of 35 and 55 — a curious circumstance, and not admitting of ready expla- 

 nation in the general absence of occupations calculated to lay special stress on the 

 nervous centres. The condition of the town then is, on the whole, satisfactory, and 

 on a consideration of its physical and social advantages, there is no prima facie 

 reason why it should have a death-rate higher than the healthiest town in the 

 kingdom. The improvements afready accomplished should be but an earnest of 

 the efforts to follow. There can be no stagnation — to stand still is to go back- 

 wards. No effort should be spared as long as there is a single preventable death 

 in the community. We might then venture to dream of the sanitary Utopia of 

 the Registrar-General, and to expect " that the tide of health-seekers may again 

 be turned to our shores, and our justly celebrated watering places may hold out 

 sanitary inducements such as shall attract even the foreigner to our shores." 



MECHANICAL SCIENCE. 



Address by John Hawkshaw, F.R.S., F.G.S., President of the Section. 



The President opened tiie proceedings of the Section by reading a brief Address, 

 as follows : — In rude ages men were willing to depend on brute force, or to eke out 

 that force by implements of the simplest kind. As they advanced in knowledge 

 and civilization they sought for other and more complex contrivances, which 

 .were better calculated to add to their powers. Thus originated mechanics, and 

 mechanical contrivances therefore multiply with the increase of the intelligence of 



