ON THE CARBONIC ACID, ORGANIC MATTER, ETC., IN AIR. 
73 
houses are added to those for the one- and two-roomed houses together. The 
numbers in this column for those diseases which are not materially affected by 
the Infirmary and Poor-houses are placed in square brackets. 
The Table is divided into five sections, of which the first gives the chemical and 
physical data referring to the different classes of houses ; the second, the statistics of 
the death-rate ; the third, statistics as to the mean age at death ; and the fourth and 
fifth, the death-rates caused by different diseases. Those given in Section 5 are 
placed separately, because the number of deaths to which they refer is too small to 
allow of a general conclusion being drawn as to any possible connexion with the 
different classes of houses. The figures are, however, of sufficient interest in themselves 
to deserve a place in the Table. 
Again, the diseases in the fourth section, and which cause more than 50 deaths, 
are divided into three classes, of which (A) contains those which show a complete 
parallelism with the number of rooms in the house ; and (B) those which show a 
complete parallelism only when the Infirmary and Poor-house deaths are taken into 
account ; while (C) includes those which do not exhibit any evident connexion with 
the class of house. The cubic spaces per person given in the first section are the 
means of our own observations, though it is probable that they are somewhat lower 
than they would be for the whole town. Unfortunately we have no statistics as 
regards the condition of the air in 3-roomed houses. 
A consideration of the Table shows :— 
(1.) That, as we pass from 4-roomed and upwards to 3-, 2-, and 1-roomed houses, not 
only does the air become more and more impure, as indicated by the increase in the 
carbonic acid and organic matter, and more especially of the micro-organisms, but 
that there is a corresponding and similar increase in the deatli-ra.te, together with a 
marked lowering of the mean age at death. 
(2.) That the rapid increase in the death-rate as we pass from 4- to 1-roomed houses 
is by far the most marked in children under five ; that the death-rate among these 
young children in 1-roomed houses is nearly four times as great as in 4-roomed 
houses, whereas the general death-rate is not cpiite twice as great ; further, that 
although there is still a marked increase in the death-rate for all above five years of 
age in the smaller houses, yet this increase is comparatively small, and is not evident 
unless the deaths in the Infirmary and Poor-houses be included in the 1 - and 2-roomed 
houses. The death-rates of persons above 70 and also above 80 years of age in the 
different classes of houses is likewise interesting and instructive. In each of these 
cases the death-rate rapidly increases from l- to 4-roomed houses ; showing, not that 
persons above these ages are more likely to die in 4-roomed than in 1-roomed houses, 
but that there are more persons of advanced age living in the better class than in the 
1-roomed houses. 
(3.) The mean age at death in the better-class houses is almost twice as great as in 
1-roomed houses. Persons living in 1-roomed houses have, therefore, the chance at 
MDCCCLXXX V II.—B. L 
