by the statistical analyses of Assistant-Surgeon Balfour. The encampments and marches of the Indian armies lie often by rivers, on low grounds. Cholera found the Marquess of Hastings near the margin of the Sinde, in Bundlekund, on November 7, 1817, and destroyed in one week 764 fighting men, and some thousands of the camp-followers of the grand army; it ceased after the 19th, when he crossed the clear stream of the Betwah, and encamped upon its high and dry banks at Erich. Colonel Pearse had been marching, in 1781, on the sea-coast six days through "sand and sea water," when his 5,000 men were "attacked with inconceivable fury," and the road was strewed with the dead in the first well-recorded epidemic of Asiatic cholera.I If an army had been marched through or encamped on the low streets of Southwark south of the Thames, in August 1849, it would no doubt have suffered severely from cholera; while it might have been moved down the high roads north or south of London with impunity. The danger from pestilence of every kind is diminished * See some good observations on the movement of troops, in the "Statistics of Cholera," by Assistant-Surgeon Edward Balfour. He shows, that of the native soldiers of the Madras army, 32 died of cholera in cantonment, 86 when marching, to an average strength of 10,000. The attacks were respectively 85 and 200 in 10,000. Dr. Lorimer's Reports show that the troops were more frequently attacked on long than on short marches: thus, the troops in 219 marches of 20-40 days were attacked 39 times; while in 14 marches of 100-120 days they were attacked 7 times. If we take 100 marches as the basis, they were attacked 18 times in about 30 days, in the one case; while in the other case they were attacked 50 times in about 110 days, that is, at the rate of 14 times in 30 days. This is no proof that fatigue increases the liability to attack; it only proves that, on the long marches, the men are exposed a longer time to the causes of the disease. Mr. Balfour would assuredly expect more men to be wounded in a battle of three days, than in a battle of one day's duration. It would be a great advantage if soldiers in the field could sleep on raised camp beds. Jameson on Cholera, pp. 15, 16. Algiers is as fatal to the French as India is to the English soldier; for the annual mortality was, as M. Boudin has shown, in his valuable papers on Algeria, and "Statisque de l'Armée," 7.58 per cent. in 1837-1846, or four times as great as the mortality (1.86 per cent. in 1842-1846) in France. The mortality was as low as 4.5 in 1838, and as high as 14.1 per cent. in 1840: it varied at the different stations in 1845, and was 3.6 in Algiers, 3.7 in Mostaganem, 4·2 in Oran, 5.5 in Philippeville, 6.6 in Blidah, and 14.1 in El-Arouch, The following order, addressed by Marshal Bugeaud, in 1847, to his Generals, shows that the French had become alive to the danger of encamping on low grounds : "J'ai remarqué que MM. les commandants de colonne choississent leur campement au bord des cours d'eau, dans l'intention louable sans doute d'éviter à leur troupes des corvées pour aller à l'eau. Mais l'experience a démontré que cette manière de camper donne un nombre considérable de malades.-Une seule nuit passée dans un bas-fond suffit quelquefois pour donner une centaine de malades sur en effectif de 3000 hommes. On comprend avec quelle rapidité une colonne serait fondue si cette manière de camper se renouvelait. "Je recommande donc de la manière la plus formelle à tous les commandants de colonne de choisir toujours leur campements sur les hauteurs et des coteaux, toutes les fois que le terrain le permettra.-Pourvu que l'on puisse bien se garder dans la position que l'on choisit, peu importe la forme donnée au camp si l'on est dans un endroit salubre. Il vaut infiniment mieux imposer quelques corvées aux hommes pour aller à l'eau et pour mener les chevaux et mulets à l'abreuvoir. La santé des soldats en souffrira beaucoup moins que de camper dans un endroit soumis à des influences morbides." by keeping troops on high ground: they often lose their strength, and perhaps some of their courage as well as health, on low ground near rivers and marshes; which, judging by the event, notwithstanding some advantages, make as bad lines of defence for armies as they do places of refuge for feeble nations, who only survive and permanently resist in the hills. The Walcheren expedition is an illustration of the fate of military operations on the deltas of great rivers, or on the low islands at their mouths.* The Peninsular war offers an example of a different kind: our troops suffered severely on the Guadiana: but the earth fought for the English on the high lines of Torres Vedras; and against Masséna in the humid plains below, until he retired to Santarem, and finally retreated with the loss of 40,000 veterans. The French army remained starving for five winter months, in the midst of marshes; and the disastrous incidents of the retreat showed that they there lost many of their finest qualities. They began their retreat with 10,000 sick. Travellers in unexplored countries should not rest on low, swampy spots; they have the best chance of preserving their health and the health of their horses and cattle by passing the nights on high ground, in the neighbourhood of springs, or near small rapid rivers. The two Landers, after Captain Clapperton, by adopting this course, landing at Badagry, and, as their map and journal show, keeping on the high grounds, arrived at Yaouri, and both succeeded in descending the Niger alive. An attentive examination of journals of travels establishes the value of this rule. Earth. If it is important that travellers, armies, and all moving bodies of men should avoid damp, low grounds, it is evidently of still greater importance that the habitations of a people should be raised on dry, drained land of a certain elevation, washed by rains, and ventilated by the breezes of heaven. The sites of many English towns are unexceptionable; they lie beautifully on the slopes of hills against the sun; the spires of their churches stand out against the sky. The sites of other cities, and of parts of nearly all, are, as we have seen, singularly bad, and should never have been selected for building. Sites of towns are as much a matter of public concern as lines of road, canals, or railways; and legislation could not be more advantageously employed than in directing and facilitating selection. The present law of settlement, and the mixed, complicated, uncertain tenure of land, * "Select Dissertations," by Sir Gilbert Blane, Dis. III. He notices that those who slept in the upper stories of houses were less liable to the Walcheren fever, and had it in a milder form, than those who slept on the ground floors. Dr. Ferguson remarked in St. Domingo, that two-thirds more men were taken ill on the ground floors than on the upper stories. The celebrated Dr. Cullen observed the same in the sickness which he witnessed in Porto Bello in the year 1740. p. 91. + Dispatches of the Duke of Wellington, vol. vii., pp. 256, 270, 448. "I never saw an army so healthy as this [the English]. Indeed I may say that we have scarcely any sick, excepting in the Walcheren regiments."-16 Feb., 1811. "The enemy's loss in this expedition to Portugal is immense; I should think not less than 45,000 men, including the sick and wounded; and I think that, including the 9th corps, they may have 40,000 on this frontier."-9th April, 1811. Napier, Peninsular War. vol. iii., Book XII. Alison, History of Europe, c. 63. + Lander's Niger Expedition. interfere seriously with the choice of ground, and exclude the people from many of the best sites in the immediate neighbourhood of the places in which they dwell. This evil can be remedied. The railways now offer extraordinary facilities for distributing the population over a wider area; and as the canals and navigable rivers have drawn the population down, the roads, stations, and warehouses, kept as high as is practicable, may counteract this tendency, raise people to a higher level, and at once facilitate drainage and the application of the sewage to agricultural purposes. The higher districts of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, immediately around London, are as healthy as any in the world; so that a moderate extension of the building area in the right direction, would be sufficient to secure salubrious sites. The cost of conveyance and carriage would be speedily compensated even to artizans by their increased health and energy; their children would be saved from death, disease, deformity, vice, drunkenness, degradation, the prolific fruits of malaria. They would be susceptible of religious and intellectual culture; which, in their present dwellings, is made difficult for the children of good and worthy workmen. The houses in England and Wales amounted to 3,117,182 in 1841, and to 3,433,859 in 1851; the increase in the interval was 316,677, in addition to those, which were built to replace decayed and destroyed houses; so that in the towns of England the selection of building-sites is a question constantly open. In the Colonies the choice of sites for new towns is a matter of primary importance. The sites lying most conveniently for commerce are often low and insalubrious; but as low shores are more subject to inundations, earthquakes, pestilences, and the influences that deteriorate the English race, the tempting facilities which they offer should not weigh against the enduring advantages of high healthy lands. Regard must of course be had to defence, commercial convenience, and fertility of soil; but in taking possession of new countries, the proper course would appear to be to ascend the rivers sufficiently high to secure vigour of race, and then gradually to descend towards the deltas, draining and cultivating the land on the way. The rule is the result of all our present investigations; it is quite in conformity with the traditional course of the primeval races. The example of Holland, of America, and of parts of England, shows that low fen and marsh land is habitable; and with efficient drainage, it is probable that, if thinly peopled by a race well fed and naturally hardy, neither disease nor degeneration would go beyond a certain point, quite compatible with a comfortable if not a very spiritual and exalted existence. A moderate elevation in temperate climates is a protection against many evils: as cholera has shown in London. Climate. Long experience alone can ultimately determine what climates are healthy; and every locality must be ultimately judged by the test of such a calculation as has been applied to the districts of England and Wales. But analogy justifies the inference from experience, in some cases brief and imperfect, that in parts of Canada, the United States, South America, New Zealand, the Isles of the Pacific Ocean, Australia, and Southern Africa, the English race retains the energy, which it invariably loses in two or three genera tions on the low tropical lands of the West India Islands, of the West Coast of Africa, and of Southern Asia; where much of the best blood of England has been sacrificed without establishing permanent settlers, making any evident impression on the native population, or producing any lasting fruits. Near the spot which has, for many years, been the centre and the capital of the imperial power in India, the devastating epidemic Cholera was generated, which has twice ravaged these islands, and twice encircled the world. The average mortality of the English troops in India has hitherto exceeded 5 per cent. annually. The removal of the European population from the low to the high land, railways, vast systems of drainage, and the steady prosecution of the sanatory measures which have been commenced, are required to justify the credit which the Government of India has latterly obtained for enlightenment and beneficence. W. H. Duncan, Esq., M.D., the Health Officer of Liverpool, was present when the above paper was read, and has kindly placed the following letter at the disposal of the Council: MY DEAR SIR,15th May, 1852. In compliance with your suggestion, I have examined the question as to the influence of elevation on cholera in Liverpool, and the following are the results. The borough is divided into sixteen municipal wards or districts. In the eight highest districts, having an average elevation of about 100 feet above high-water mark, the mortality from cholera was 90 in 10,000 inhabitants. In the eight lowest districts, with an average elevation of about 35 feet, the mortality was 214 in 10,000.* The higher districts had a population of about 186,000; the lower, about 165,000. Dividing the districts into three groups, having, as nearly as the arrangement admits of, equal amounts of population, the mortality in the highest group was 59 in 10,000; in the middle group, 176 in 10,000; and in the lowest, 211 in 10,000. The average elevation of these groups was respectively about 125, 50, and 30 feet. In the first group, the elevations varied from 110 to 160 feet; in the second, from 44 to 74 feet; in the third, from 20 to 38 feet. Taking the districts singly where the difference of elevation is only 2 or 3 feet, I find the law is not carried out, being apparently overpowered by disturbing elements which come into operation. But when the districts of approximating elevations are grouped together, and the groups so formed contrasted, the results distinctly point to a relation between the elevation of the soil, and the mortality from cholera. I myself estimated the elevations from the contour-map of the borough, so that they cannot be depended on as strictly accurate. They are as nearly so, however, as I could make them. I am, dear Sir, William Farr, Esq. Yours faithfully, W. H. DUNCAN. = mortality from * By the law in the previous paper, 113: 48 :: 214 : x = 91 cholera in the higher districts. The actual mortality observed was 92.-W. F. : MISCELLANEOUS. PROCEEDINGS OF THE STATISTICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. SESSION 1851-2. Fifth Ordinary Meeting. Monday, 15th March, 1852. Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Sykes, Vice-President, in the Chair. The Right Honourable Lord Wodehouse was elected a Member of the Society. The following Papers were read: 1. On the Rate of Mortality prevailing in the Medical Profession. By F. G. P. Neison, Esq. 2. On the Mortality in the Bombay Army. By Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Sykes. Sixth Ordinary Meeting. Monday, 19th, April, 1852. The following Gentlemen were elected Fellows of the Society:— Walter Ruding Deverell, Esq. The following Papers were read: William L. Howard, Esq. 1. Vital Statistics of Chittagong, Bengal. By Assistant-Surgeon Bedford. 2. Mortality from Cholera in England, 1848-9. By W. Farr, Esq. Seventh Ordinary Meeting. Monday, 17th May, 1852. Lieut.-Colonel W. H. Sykes, Vice-President, in the Chair. Edward Barlow, Esq., was elected a Fellow of the Society. The adjourned discussion on Mr. Farr's Paper on Cholera in England, 1848-9, was resumed. THE MARRIAGES, BIRTHS, AND DEATHS, REGISTERED IN THE DIVISIONS, COUNTIES, AND DISTRICTS OF ENGLAND, AS PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE REGISTRAR-GENERAL. THIS return comprises the births and deaths registered by 2,190 registrars in all the districts of England during the Autumn quarter ending December 31st, 1851; and the marriages in more than 12,000 churches or chapels, about 3,228 registered places of worship unconnected with the Established Church, and 623 superintendent registrars' offices, in the quarter that ended September 30th, 1851. The return of marriages is not complete; but the defects are inconsiderable, and approximative numbers have been supplied from the records of previous years. The marriages and the births exceed the average numbers; and the deaths are also slightly above the average of the corresponding quarters. For the whole of the year 1851 the births have greatly exceeded the numbers in any previous year, and the mortality has been lower than it was in any of the 10 years 1841-50, except 1843, 1845, and 1850. The births, deaths, and marriages |