122 
ORDER BIMAN A.— GENUS HOMO. 
14,749; Small-pox, 12,534; Dropsy, 8023; Measles, 5780; Asthma, 
5472; Apoplexy, 2995; Childbirth, 1942; Palsy, 1165; Gout, 808; 
Miscarriage, 24. Total, 113,601. 
The principal fatal disea- es which occurred among the inhabitants ol 
London, consisting of a population of 1,178,374 persons, included witliin 
the Bills of Mortality during the year 1831, are indicated in the following 
Table 
CLASSES OF DISE.VSES. 
SPECIFIC DISEASES. 
TOTAL DEATHS 
BY EACH CLASS 
OF DISEASES. 
RATE PEE 
CENT. 
Pectoral Complaints, . 
Inflammation, 
Convulsions, .... 
Age and Debility, . . 
Miscellaneous Diseases, 
Diseases of the Brain, 
Eruptive Fevers, 
Fevers, 
Still-born 
Diseases of Liver, 
Diseases of Bowels, 
r 
Consumption, 
Inflammation of J 
lungs and pleura, S 
Asthma, . . 
Hooping-cough, 
Disease of heart, 
Hydrothorax, . 
Inflammation, . 
Abscess, . . 
Mortification, . 
Apoplexy, . . 
Paralysis, . . 
Insanity, . . 
Epilepsy, . . 
Dropsy in brain. 
Scarlet fever, . 
Small pox, . . 
Measles, . . 
Erysipelas, . 
Intermittent, . 
Typhus, 
Common, . . 
Disease of liver. 
Jaundice, . . 
Dysentery, 
Diarrhoea, . . 
Inflammation of 
bowels & stomacl 
, Cholera, . . 
7865 
3280 
2980 
2677 
2439 
1864 
1544 
1224 
898 
340 
230 
.667 
.278 
.253 
.227 
.207 
.158 
.1.32 
.104 
.076 
.029 
.019 
25,-34 1 
25,341 
2.150 
Every country has its local maladies, which select their victims, and serve 
to diminish the probabilities of life. In the metropolis nearly one-fifth of 
the annual deaths are occasioned by consumption. Scurvy and diseases 
of the lungs are common in the North of Europe; in the Southern parts, 
acute fevers are prevalent. Under the tropics, pestilential fevers prevail 
during the periods of greatest heat, and dysentery in the rainy season. We 
find the plague in Egypt, Syria, and Turkey, the yellow fever in America. 
The nature of the soil and climate, the food used by the inhabitants, thequa- 
lities of the air which they habitually respire, customs more or less injurious 
to health, and other circumstances not fully understood, are the exciting 
causes of certain morbid states of the body. 
Diseases are termed Endemic, when they belong to a particular coun- 
try, as the Cholera on the Banks of the Ganges. Endemics again may 
he either Sporadic or Epidemic. In the former case, they attack only 
a few individuals here and there at a time, as the Asiatic Cholera has 
done in this country since 1832; — in the latter, they attack a very great 
number of the inhabitants of any country at the same time, as the Cholera 
of 1832, or the Influenza of the winter of 1836-7. An epidemic is some- 
times nothing more than an ordinary sporadic disease, which has become 
general in its attacks, such as the common continued fever of this country, 
and thus any sporadic disease may become epidemic. Sometimes it is a 
foreign malady supposed to be introduced by contagion, or produced in 
the country by some unknown influence, as the plague, and more recently 
the Asiatic Cholera ; or it may be a new disease altogether, as happened 
in Paris during 1828-1829, and of which the cause remains unknown. 
In many cases, the local circumstances of a country appear to be the 
evident causes of certain endemic maladies ; but others result from a com- 
plication of diflTerent causes, such as the Plica Polonica, a disease of the 
hair, by which it becomes long and coarse, matted and glued in inextricable 
lanHes, and peculiar to Poland, Tartary, and Lithuania, towards tlie 
autumn. Baldness and epilepsy are frequent in the islands of the /Egaean 
Archipelago; St Vitus’ dance {Chorea) in the territory of Suabia; and 
Tarantulisro, a kind of spasmodic affection, common in Italy, where it was 
erroneously attributed to the bite of the Tarantula Spider. It seems 
difficult to assign any satisfactory leason why Dogs scarcelj’ ever go mad in 
Mexico and Manilla, although hydrophobia is common on the Coroman- 
del Coast, according to Legentil ; or why the plague does not spread from 
Egypt towards the East Indies, Tonquin, and thence to China, while it 
tends continually towards the west. St Petersburg and the Feroe Island* 
are almost exempted from intermittent fevers ; and quartan agues are 
scarcely to be found in Scotland, peculiarities which are probably owing 
to the dryness and keenness of the air. 
When the climate of a country is affected by the general cultivation nt 
the soil, there results a corresponding change in the endemic maladies of 
the locality. In proportion as the ancient forests of Pennsylvania were 
cut down, the inflammatory fevers, then very common, disappeared, and 
were replaced by bilious agues, according to Dr Rush. The climate of 
France and Germany was formerly much colder and moistcr than at jifO' 
sent, owing to the dense forests with which the country was covered, a* 
well as the pastoral and almost savage lives of the inhabitants ; and ga'* 
rise to other endemical affections than those observed at the present da,'- 
The inhabitants of all marshy situations, without exception, where the 
standing waters continn.ally give rise to putrid exhalations, arc subject to 
intermittent fevers, especially to tertian and quartan agues. These mala- 
dies are more or less dangerous, according to the heat of the climate an‘ 
the season of the year. Tertian agues, which may be mild in the spring- 
often become continuous in summer, malignant towards the autumn-^ 
equinox, while winter again renders them chronic, and deprives them " 
their virulence. The simple tertian ague of Amsterdam assumes, uno‘ 
the burning sun of Batavia, the aspect of an intermittent of the most dan 
gerous character. . 
Endemics may also be attributed to the nature of the food and 
Nearly all maritime nations, who live continually on fish, appear to 
be sub' 
ject to frequent diseases of the .skin. These affections prevail in the ■ 
dian Archipelago, in the Antilles, as well as in the Western Isles, Ice 
and especially round the Baltic Sea; likewise in Friesland, Scotland, 
land, Brittany, and generally among all classes whose occupations 
chiefly those of fishing and the coasting trade. Certain fishes, sn^- 
the Sharks (Ai/uo/kf), Skate {Raia), and others, especially towards 
spawning season, actually induce the cutaneous eruptions. On the n 
Seas, a great number of these maladies are produced by several Braiic » 
tegous Fishes, such a.s Diodons and Tetradons ; also, in the neig ' 
hood of the Caspian Sea, and the rivers of Northern .Asia, from the a 
of Caviar and other unhealthy preparations of I'ish. 
Some kinds of vegetable diet are also the cause of endemical 
The coarse bread used by the inhabitants of Westphalia, and the 
