174 NOTE* AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NOTE NN. 



The comparative mortality of London has not only greatly diminished within the 

 last fifty or sixty years, but a number of diseases which, previous to that period, were 

 very destructive, have almost entirely disappeared ; for instance, the plague, the rick- 

 ets, and the scurvy : while others that were formerly considered very mortal, are now 

 viewed as no longer formidable ; such as the small pox, the dysentery and intermittent 

 fevers. 



Other diseases, supposed to he less dependent on the physical than on the moral and 

 political changes which Great Britain has undergone, have increased in number and fatali- 

 ty ; and are attributed, chiefly, to the increase of manufactures ; and, consequently, of 

 the number of sedentary and otherwise unwholesome occupations ; to the augmentation 

 of the national wealth, and with it, of luxury and high feeding ; and to the fluctuations 

 in the conditions of life, attendant on the spirit of commercial speculation. To the first 

 of these sources is ascribed, in part, the regular increase of the consumption, during the 

 last century ; to the second, the more inconsiderable, but scarcely less regular, increase 

 of apoplexy, palsy, gout, and sudden deaths ; and to the last, the more frequent occur- 

 rence of insanity in its different forms: and the increase of intemperance and vice, in a 

 large and populous city, doubtless contributes much to the augmentation of all these 

 diseases. 



Dr. Heberden states the proportion of these three classes of disease, at the beginning, 

 middle, and end, of the eighteenth century, to have been as follows : 





Beginning. 



Middle. 



End. 



Consumption, 



3,000 



4,000 



5,000 



Palsy, apoplexy, &c. 



157 



280 



300 



Lunatic, 



27 



75 



70 



If we compare the mortality from consumption, at those three periods, with the total 

 mortality, we find, that in 1669 the deaths, from consumption, were, to the whole, as, 





1 



to about 



6 



2 



1749, 



1 





5 



5 



1799, 



1 





3 



8 



1808, 



1 





3 



6 



