30 GENERAL DEATH-RATE FOR ALL AGES, ETC. 



centres of population, as in Europe and other Old World 

 centres. 



In any case, whatever difficulty remains unexplained as 

 regards the periodicity of the death-rate, the reference to a 

 cosmical or superterrestrial influence has more to commend it 

 than the other three sources so frequently referred to without 

 support of a satisfactory character. 



Let me not be understood, however, to assert the valueless- 

 ness of human effort by ascribing the periodical death-rate, 

 rise, and fall, mainly to far reaching superterrestrial causes, 

 among which the sun's varying energy plays a large part. 

 On the contrary, I desire to affirm that human effort, 

 directed to selection of sites for dwellings ; supplies of pure 

 food and water ; to provision against poisonous food and 

 drinks ; to improvements in sanitary matters, and to facili- 

 ties for healthful recreation; to improvements in workshops and 

 factories ; to the multiplication of acknowledged health safe- 

 guards and of convenient centres for the proper treatment 

 of disease, as well as to improvement in treatment of injuries 

 and diseases. In all such matter human elf ort does much, and 

 can do more, to mitigate the intensities of attacks of disease, 

 from whatever source they come, even if it cannot wholly 

 subdue them. That sanitation and improved treatment have 

 done much in England during the last twenty years to lower 

 the death-rate of the younger lives cannot be reasonably 

 doubted, and this of itself should encourage local effort 

 to strive for further improvememt. 



Man's Influence. Density op Population and 

 Hygiene. 



Except as an ideal standard of health, there is not much 

 value in making comparisons between urban and country 

 districts, because density of population is itself an important 

 factor in raising the death-rate. If we examine the mean 

 death-rate of urban and country districts during the years 

 1882-6, we find, after making due allowance for old age, 

 hospitals, and public institutions, that the former indicated 

 for ages under 60, 13'83 per 1,000, and the latter 8'13 per 

 1,000 ; that is a difference of 70'1 per cent. This is an 

 enormous difference in favour of country districts. It is 

 true that the centralisation in the urban districts of 

 the sick in Hospitals, and of j)aupers and criminals from all 

 parts of the country, artificially increases the death-rate of 

 the former, and lessens that of the latter, to a much greater 

 extent than happens in countries where Hospitals and 

 Asylums are more generally distributed. Notwithstanding 

 this, however, and while recognising on the average that the 

 occupations of townspeople are more unhealthy than those of 



