TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 



491 



which is deserving of the greatest attention. The table exhibiting the average 

 age at death during 1862-71, and -embracing 10,000 deaths, reveals many remark- 

 able facts. There is some reason to believe that the mortality among grinders is 

 not so excessive as it was, though it is still very high. According to the table it 

 was in 1862-71 44 years ; from the tables for 1878 it was 47-3. 



The following table contains the particulars of the number of deaths, and the 

 average age at death among various classes of workmen in Sheffield during the 

 year 1878, and also the numbers dying at certain groups of ages. A few years ago 

 it was currently believed that a grinder aged above fifty was a curiosity in 

 Sheffield. But we see from the table that thirty-eight died over fifty years of age 

 in 1878, or 45 - 2 per 100 of the total number of deaths. 



Average Age at Death, and Number op Deaths in various Trades in 

 Sheffield in the Year 1878, and during the Eight Years 1864-71. 



Among the local diseases those affecting the lungs are the most fatal, owing to 

 a large extent to the nature of some of the trades of the town. During the ten 

 years, 1851-60, disease of the lungs amounted to 4-247 per 1000, and during 1862-71 

 to 4*867 per 1000. Phthisis, or consumption, a disease very fatal in Sheffield, is 

 not included in this. During 1851-60, 3-061 per 1000 fell victims to consumption, 

 a rate which is "364 in excess of the average for all England and Wales. The 

 presence of silica and iron has been demonstrated in the lungs of persons much 

 exposed to the dust of grinding and stone cutting. Meinel found an excess of from 

 30 to 50 grains as compared with the lungs of those who were not exposed to the 

 danger of dust. If hygienists believe that fevers are preventible, which are caused 

 by an invisible, unknown agent, surely we should be able to diminish the terrible 

 mortality among stone cutters and grinders, the cause of wliich may be seen and 

 felt and tasted, as it hangs suspended in the air they breathe for hours every day 

 in earning their bread. Why many workers, at trades of entirely different cha- 

 racter, shoidd have exactly the same average age at death is a problem wliich is 

 deserving of attention. Why shoidd policemen have such very bad lives, an 

 average of only 41 years, the same as the bricklayer ? Of 107 soldiers who died 



