•152 Eugene Rollin Corson 



for the colored 31.7 per 1,000 deaths from specified causes. 

 Up to the age of 15 the number of deaths from this cause is 

 proportionately greater among the colored." And as to 

 malarial fevers : ' ' The proportion of deaths from these cau.ses 

 is decidedly greater in the colored (48 3) than in the whites 

 (30.7), but this rule by no means holds good in all the grand 

 groups. The excess in the proportion of deaths from these 

 causes among the colored population occurs throughout all 

 the groups of ages." 



As to theexanthematic fevers, I have already mentioned the 

 high mortality from measles among the colored children. We 

 have a history of its malignancy in the Sandwich Islands, where 

 a large number of the population were swept away. 



It has long been recognized that the negro is peculiarly sus- 

 ceptible to smallpox and that the mortality is high. In a 

 small epidemic in 1891, 44 cases were reported to the Health 

 Officer, of which 4 were white and 40 were negroes. There was 

 one death among the whites and 21 among the colored, that is, 

 a mortality of 50 per cent. Two of these were found dead and 

 seven in extremis, showing their usual carelessness and in- 

 difference. Smallpox was introduced into Savannah in 1865, 

 1866, 1867, 1875, 1876, 1882, 1884 and 1885, during all of 

 which times the disease went hard with the negroes, and they 

 who recovered were severely pitted. In vaccinating them 

 with lymph from the calf many suffered from severe sores 

 which were long in healing. As I have stated the colored 

 are not susceptible to scarlatina, or the allied poison of diph- 

 theria. These diseases, moreover, are not common with us. 



Cholera was brought into Savannah in 1S66, resulting in 85 

 deaths among the whites and 211 deaths among the colored. 

 In 1867 there were 12 deaths from this disease among the 

 whites and 17 among the colored ; and in 1868, 13 deaths 

 among the whites and 18 among the colored. 



It is an interesting and significant fact that prior to emanci- 

 pation the negro was quite exempt from }'ellow fever. In 

 1854 there were in Savannah, from this disease 625 deaths 

 among the whites and only 10 deaths among the colored, while 

 in 1876 there were 771 deaths among the whites and 125 deaths 



