General remarks on the health of English manufacturers : and on the need which exists for the establishment of convalescents' retreats as subservient to the medical charities of our large towns / by John Roberton.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: General remarks on the health of English manufacturers : and on the need which exists for the establishment of convalescents' retreats as subservient to the medical charities of our large towns / by John Roberton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    'lindeed, it is probable that the difference which exists jiin regard to the duration of life in this country and jmmong barbarians, is owing, chiefly, to the far greater j(chance of life in infancy, with us, than with the latter, j! Moreover, there are various peculiar causes which have jt tended to lengthen the duration of life in England, 'without producing a correspondent exemption from t disease. A century and a half ago, violent epidemics, jssuch as fluxes, agues, spotted fevers, and small pox, as uvell as inflammatory diseases, were far more common Ithan they are now, and incomparably more fatal. In 'The muscular power of the Indian miners is well known. When (our Cornish men, during the late mining mania, visited the Mexican I mines, they were utterly astonished at the weight of the burdens 1 which the Indians were in the habit of carrying.—See Head’s Rough 'Notes. “They will” says Humboldt, speaking of these miners, : “ remain continually loaded for six hours, with a weight of from : 250 to 350 pounds, and constantly exposed to a very high tempera- t ture, ascending eight or ten times successively without intermission s stairs of eighteen hundred steps.” Their food is dried beef and ’water.—Polit. Essay, vol. i. p. 125. In regard to the fact, that the list of diseases among savages is s small compared with that among Europeans, it is easy of proof; so |« easy indeed, that it would be superfluous to enter upon it. The jr reader who is interested in the subject, mav consult Capt. Carver’s jl Travels in North America, p. 389 ; Keeting’s Exped. to the Source icof St. Peter’s River, vol. i. p. 128; James’s Exped. to the Rocky j] Mountains, vol. i. p. 239; Dobrizhofier, vol. ii. p. 219; also the |< Observations of Mr. Edwards on the Esquimaux of Melville Island, pin Parry’s Second Voyage, p. 543. In Humboldt’s Travels, and in |t the Histories of Greenland, by Crantz and Edege, there is likewise |i abundant evidence advanced in proof of the same fact.