I have selected the mortality among infants in
preference to that at all ages, as the deaths occur more quickly, and
because young children suffer in greater proportion than other persons.
The proportionate number of deaths at _all ages_ from diarrhoea corresponds
pretty closely with those of infants. To prove this, I made calculations
for three years, and ascertained that only 3.9 per cent. of all the deaths
from this disease were registered in the weeks having a temperature of
less than 50 deg.; 11.9 per cent. in the weeks having a temperature between
50 deg. and 60 deg.; while in the comparatively few weeks in which the temperature
exceeded 60 deg. F., as many as 84.2 per cent. of the total number of deaths
was registered. In the sixteen years, 1840-56, for which many years ago I
made a special inquiry, only 18.9 per cent. of all the deaths from
diarrhoea occurred in winter and spring, against 81.1 per cent. in summer
and autumn. In the twenty years, 1860-79, there were seven years in which
the summer temperature was in defect when the mortality per 100,000
inhabitants of London was 200; while in ten summers, during which the
temperature was in excess by 2 deg. or less, the mortality was 317 per
100,000. The mean temperature was largely in excess, that is to say, more
than 2 deg.
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