84 
JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
GEOGRAPHY OF DEVONSHIRE AND 
CONSUMPTION. 
ABSTRACT OF PAPER BY DR. WILLIAM H. PEARSE. 
(Read November 30th, 1876.) 
By Geography is meant all the physical conditions of the earth. 
The body is related to all these, and, in fact, corelates with all 
physical Existences. 
"What are known as the so-called different diseases, are natural 
deviations of growth and rate, the result of defective co-ordination 
of the composition, and physical or vito-physical relations, of the 
body. The deviation of healthy growth, or failure of formative 
force, known as Consumption, happens, in the main, in man's best 
years — from twenty-five to forty-five ; but the consumptive curve 
rises gradually through all ages, up to its highest, between twenty- 
five and thirty-five ; then it again falls. That direction of vital force 
or growth which ends in Consumption fails more in female than 
in male Being ; e.g. in England and Wales the mean percentage for 
ten years is as 2*48 female to 2-46 male. But the law or rate of 
Consumption, though grandly uniform, yet shows much variation. 
This variation, and diminution in some instances due to known and 
controllable physical conditions, makes the great interest of the 
enquiry ; e.g. the Registrar- General shows that whilst in England 
and Wales of 1,000,000 born, 114,417 will die of Consumption; 
yet that in the " healthy districts " of England and Wales, of 
1,000,000 born, 108,481 only will die of Consumption. Or again, 
in the opposite direction, London life casts up the male death rate 
to 3*35, the female being 2-39 only. The subject is here treated as a 
part of Natural History in its widest sense ; the study pursued on 
the same method as that followed in the cognate phenomena of 
Hereditariness, contained-variability, &c. 
Taking the limited area of Devon, we can see what physical, 
