138 Eugene Rollin Corson 



the proportion of 9.1 among the whites to 17.7 among the 

 colored per 1,000 deaths from known causes, and our table 

 tallies well with these figures. Cases of whooping-cough be- 

 come broncho-pneumonia with brain complication and con- 

 vulsions. 



As the mortuary tables do not give the proportion of infants 

 and young children, I have had to limit myself in the above 

 table to recognized infantile diseases, but from my own ex- 

 perience I can state positively that bronchitis, broncho-pneu- 

 monia, and pneumonia are common among the colored child- 

 dren and very fatal. Broncho pneumonia is the form most 

 commonly met with, and many cases put down as pneumonia 

 are, strictly speaking, this form of the disease. 



The great heat of the summer, especially the vitiated heat 

 in the large cities, is a most potent factor in raising the death 

 rate among the infant population. This factor holds with 

 much less force in the southern cities from the fact that houses 

 are built more open, of one or two stories only, — I speak of 

 the homes of the poorer classes, — and the summers, while 

 much longer than the northern summers, have not that in- 

 tense heat, and most important still, the air is not so vitiated 

 as it is in districts where high brick walls prevent a proper 

 ventilation. Yet I see many cases of high fever among col- 

 ored infants and young children, with symptoms of cerebral 

 congestion and inflammation, and with a high mortalitj', due 

 to a direct exposure to the sun's rays. This is a danger which 

 is absolutely unheeded by the colored masses. It is a fre- 

 quent cause of death. The whites are more careful in this re- 

 spect and suffer less. What is known as sunstroke, ictus so/is, 

 due to a hot vitiated air, is not so common in the south as in 

 the close cities of the north and west. 



As I shall show later, tuberculosis in the form of pulmonary 

 phthisis, carries off almost twice as man}- colored as whites. 

 This affects chiefly the adult population. With our increas- 

 ing knowledge of tuberculosis, we find its path of destruction 

 becoming broader and broader. At the time of Koch's dis- 

 covery of the tubercle bacillus, its field of operation seemed to 

 be limited to the lungs. It was soon found, however, that 



