284 THE PRESENT EVOLUTION OF MAN — PHYSICAL 



and all the symptoms and ultimately all tlie post- 

 mortem morbid appearances of tubercular disease of the 

 lungs.' Next to the hard labour. Green lays most stress 

 on the bad ventilation of the cells, and on the highly 

 defective construction of the prison in other respects. 



"The great frequency of consumption in convict 

 prisons may seem to be due to many of the prisoners 

 bringing the disease with them ; but that such is not 

 the case follows from the well-authenticated fact that 

 most of the deaths from phthisis among prisoners do 

 not occur until later years of their term of confinement. 

 At Millbank Penitentiary signs of a pulmonary affection 

 on admission could be made out, as Baly tells us, in 

 only 12 prisoners among 1502 who entered in 1842, 

 and in only 15 among 3249 who were received in 1844. 

 Among the convicts of 1842 there were 510 women 

 sentenced to transportation who remained at Millbank 

 not longer than three months, and of these two fell ill 

 with phthisis or scrofula during that time ; whereas of 

 the remaining prisoners admitted, no fewer than forty- 

 seven became consumptive before the completion of 

 their terms of two or two-and-a-half years. It is 

 further to be kept in mind, that most of the convicts 

 sent to Millbank had already served longer or shorter 

 terms in smaller prisons elsewhere, and not a few of 

 them more than one term ; so that in a certain pro- 

 portion of those who were found phthisical on admission 

 to the central prison, the seeds of the disease might 

 have been implanted while they were undergoing 

 sentence previously. 



" There is no doubt that prisoners are exposed to a 

 large number of noxious influences capable of affecting 

 their health or of creating more or less of predisposition 

 to take phthisis, or of augmenting a predisposition 

 already there, and among these a bad or insufficient 

 diet, as we have already seen, might play a not un- 

 important part. But even under those circumstances, 

 it is evident that the real factor is a protracted de- 

 tention, or a detention with brief remissions, in crowded 

 and ill-ventilated work-rooms and sleeping-places. That 

 is the one detrimental thing that obtains with more or 



