The relations between a high summer temperature and excessive mortality
from diarrhoea have long been well known, but the immediate cause of the
disease as an epidemic is not known. Summer diarrhoea prevails to a greater
extent in certain localities, notably in Leicester (and has done so for
years); and the cause has been carefully sought for, but has not been
found out. Recent researches, however, point to a kind of bacillus as the
immediate cause, as it has been found in the air of water-closets, in the
traps under the pans, and in the discharges from infants and young
children. In order to indicate more readily how intimately the mortality
from diarrhoea depends on temperature, I now lay before you a table showing
the mean temperature for ten weeks in summer, of seven cold and hot
summers, the temperature of Thames water, and the death-rates of infants
under one year per million population of London:
_London.--Deaths under 1 Year, in July, August, and part of
September, from Diarrhoea per 1,000,000 Population Living
at all Ages, arranged in the Order of Mortality._
Age 0-1 year.
Mean Temperature Deaths from Diarrhoea
Years. temperature, of Thames per 1,000,000
10 weeks.
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