igo UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



a set of figures which show the appaUing loss of life from tuberculosis 

 in the occupations named. The business and professional classes 

 have a comparatively low death rate from the disease, so that they 

 bring down the average for "all occupied males" far below that of 

 the majority of skilled trades or of unskilled labor. 



Statistics of occupation are seldom accurate, so that not too much 

 weight should be given to them. The high death rate in each of the 

 trades noted above is, however, easily explained. Tin miners, copper 

 miners and file makers come in contact with metallic dust, and the 

 first two are underground much of the time; laborers are poorly 

 paid and hence are likely to be badly housed and have insufficient 

 food; hotel servants are usually men not strong enough to work in 

 other occupations. 



Tuberculosis and Poverty. — About one-tenth of the cases of 

 poverty and destitution in the large cities are found to be due to 

 tuberculosis, which kills or incapacitates the breadwinner of the 

 family. On the other hand, it is likely that one-half of the cases of 

 tuberculosis are due to poverty, for it is a disease which attacks most 

 of all the underfed, the insufficiently clad, and the poorly housed. 



When tuberculosis attacks the father of a poor family, the mother 

 may be forced to seek employment taking her away from home. 

 Thus the children are neglected and are likely to have insufficient 

 and improper food. At the same time, with lack of proper home 

 supervision the family life is destroyed and the children run the 

 streets or must go out as wage-earners. The education of the chil- 

 dren becomes impossible, and hence ignorance and often vice and 

 crime are the harvest of the tuberculosis seeds sown in the body of 

 the parent. If the mother, instead of the father, becomes a victim of 

 the disease, the results, as must be appreciated, are hardly less dis- 

 astrous. Again the children are neglected and with the same results. 



In the city of Hamburg, in Germany, the annual death rate from 

 tuberculosis per 100,000 living persons in the poorest quarter is 670, 

 while for residents of the better parts of the city it is only no. In 

 New York City the boroughs of Manhattan and Bronx, in which 

 there is great crowding, show a much higher death rate from tuber- 



