11
M
Le recteur de presente ses complimens à
-, et Monsieur le Docteur - lui annonce qu’il a
parcouru le registre des enterremens pour quatre ans,
et y a trouvé, autant qu’il peut se rappeller, les noms
de 28 personnes qui sont mortes de la consomption
durant ce teins la.
Ce 7 Mars, 1834.
Now in tlie parish alluded to, the average number
of deaths is 40 per annum. This would give us in
four years, 160 deaths: of whicli the 28 were from
consumption. But when we reflect that this term is
applied to all cases of atrophy, tabes, and general
wasting away of the body in the latter stages of all
diseases (and it is then chiefly that the clergy see the
sick) we cannot reckon more than half of the alleged
number to have been cases of genuine tubercular
phthisis. However, counting them at 20, we have
then the proportion of 1 out of 8 deaths,—which is
little more than half the number that occurs both
in Great Britain, and every other part of Europe.
M. S.
Before dismissing the subject of disease, I will occupy
a page or two promiscuously, in brief allusions to
a few other maladies.
Diseases of the skin are very frequent in Jersey.
To the production of these, among the poor, the action
of a saline atmosphere, inattention to cleanliness, and
the effects of an impoverished diet, equally contribute.
Instances of these affections come daily under observation.
Among the more frequent are those of the
kinds called impetiginous, porriginous, and pruriginous.
I was lately consulted, by a middle-aged gentleman,
in a case of prurigo, or itching, in which the sensation
was so intolerable as to make life a burthen. Night or
day, there was no remission ; and such was the urgency
of the symptoms, that they could only be allayed by
fomenting the part affected with lotions of pure brandy.
The disease had continued for years, despite of all the
efforts of the faculty to relieve it. Scabies, or the
disease familiarly known as the itch, is also common,
and sometimes inveterate. Sycosis, and even lupus,
are occasionally seen ; and some of the diseases, peculiarly
incident to women, seem to prevail here extensively.
The climate is relaxing; and such cases
recover slowly,—and only after a long and tedious
convalescence. Erysipelas is frequent, affecting chiefly
the head : and it occasionally proves fatal, by metastasis
to the brain. I have also seen one case of diffuse
cellular inflammation.
Among children, diseases seem less inflammatory in
their type : and are less pointed towards the pulmonary
organs than in England : and, upon the whole, hydrocephalus,
or water in the brain, although far from rare,
is still, less general in these parts.
It was formerly an opinion current among physicians,
that urinary calculi prevailed much more in the
cider counties (as Hereford and Devonshire) than in
other parts of England : and that such beverage was
consequently favourable to the generation of those
concretions. If that opinion had not been already
exploded, Jersey would have controverted it. The
universal liquor among the islanders is cider : and yet
lithonomy has been performed only once by an able
army surgeon, who has practised his profession exten-
;J-JH
ii
i l i :
"1
iI?'ir Sdì.
:f
n I
T-'l