TABLE III.-Mean Annual Deaths from Bronchitis, Pleurisy, Pneumonia, and Congestion of Lungs among Male Population in England and Wales of the Ages 15-45, for the Periods mentioned, with their Ratios per 1,000 Living at each Age.

TABLE IV.-Showing the Ages of the Troops serving in the United Kingdom for the periods mentioned, and the Deaths which would have occurred from Consumption umong those at the rates prevailing among the Civil Male Population of the same Ages. The column headed 35— includes the very small number of men aged 45 and upwards remaining in the service.

Numbers specified in
medical returns... 70,055 87,329 117,800 37,417 312,601 20- 132,394

15- 106,206 1-85

196

10

to average strength

1874

in adjutant-general's 106,206 132,394 178,588 56,725 473,913 35

25-178,588 4-01
56,725

716

4.28

243

adjutant-general's

15- 77,818 1.66
20- 171,907

129

3:05

524

to

1879

annual returns, cor-
rected to average
strength in same

77,818 171,907 173,724 85,130 472,579 25- 137,724 3.67
35- 85,130 4.19

180 1,000 Ratio per 1,000 for Troops

3.21

TABLE VI. - Showing the Strength, Deaths from all Causes in the Service, and Half the Men Discharged with Phthisis among the Troops in the United Kingdom; also the Percentage of the Total Mortality due to Phthisis at the undermentioned Periods.

DISCUSSION on DR. LAWSON'S PAPER.

THE CHAIRMAN (Sir Rawson W. Rawson, K.C.M.G., C.B.) said, that not very long ago a paper was read by Mr. Humphreys showing how the length of life among the civil population had increased during the last quinquennium, and he thought they were now very much indebted to Dr. Lawson for bringing out the fact that there had been a general decrease of the fatal influence of phthisis both in the civil population and the army. In the early period mentioned in the paper the disease appeared to have proved fatal in more than 2,000 cases out of 2,400. That was about 83 per cent., so that more than four-fifths proved fatal. A number of these were discharged, and more than half of them died from it in civil life. The evidence brought forward showed that not only in civil life but also in the army a very great improvement had taken place with regard to the treatment and incidence of the disease. A great part of this result had been brought about by better sanitary arrangements in the barracks and in the soldiers' clothing. When he was in the Barbados the barracks there were at one time occupied by two regiments and a wing, and it was proved that only about one regiment could be maintained there in health. On one occasion he went into an abandoned room and saw where the soldiers used to sleep in hammocks in double tiers. The room was only about 9 feet or 10 feet high, and yet the men had had to sleep in tiers one above the other. It was therefore no wonder that the mortality among them had been great.

Dr. LONGSTAFF said the subject was one of extreme intricacy and difficulty. Some time ago he was asked to write upon it, but on looking into the matter he came to the conclusion that the difficulties were altogether too great for him to deal with. He therefore respected the great courage of Dr. Lawson who had taken in hand such a gigantic business. He was not prepared to endorse all the deductions that had been drawn from the figures, mainly because he thought that the foundations upon which they were built were somewhat uncertain. To compare military with civil statistics was objectionable because of one inherent fallacy which ran throughout the whole of the figures. Civil statistics were only an approximation to accuracy; still, they applied to a very large population, and they were calculated by the whole aggregate mass of the medical practitioners of the country. Very different was it with regard to military statistics. The population they dealt with was small, was constantly being changed in sudden and remarkable ways, and above all was a selected population; while the statistics were calculated by a specially selected class of medical men, who probably had on the average a better knowledge of their patients than the ordinary medical practitioner of the country.