upon the Health of the Inhabitants of London. 281 
many years. These two seasons were chosen as being each of 
them very remarkable, and in immediate succession one to the 
Other, and in every body's recollection. 
It may not be impertinent to the objects of this Society, 
without entering too much into the province of medicine, to 
consider a little more particularly the several ways in which 
this effect may be supposed to be produced ; and to point out 
some of the principal injuries which people are liable to sustain 
in their health from a severe frost. And one of the first things 
that must strike every mind engaged in this investigation, is 
its effect on old people. It is curious to observe among those 
who are said in the bills to die above 60 years of age, how re- 
gularly the tide of mortality follows the influence of this pre- 
vailing cause : so that a person used to such inquiries, may 
form no contemptible judgment of the severity of any of our 
winter months, merely by attending to this circumstance. 
Thus their number last January was not much above -|-th of 
what it had been in the same month the year before. The 
article of asthma, as might be expected, is prodigiously in- 
creased, and perhaps includes no inconsiderable part of the 
mortality of the aged. After these come apoplexies and pal- 
sies, fevers, consumptions, and dropsies. Under the two last 
of which are contained a large proportion of the chronical 
diseases of this country ; all which seem to be hurried on to 
a premature termination. The whole will most readily be 
seen at one view in the following table. 
O o 2 
