II. CLIMATORIAL DISEASES.
Catarrh.—It would result from table A VIII. that the common catarrh was less prevalent at Penzance, than in either London or Plymouth.[1] Judging from general observation, however, I should say, that in the slight form in which it is usually observed, when it hardly claims medical interference, it was as frequent there as elsewhere. It was also common in the chronic form, as a sequela of the acute disease.
The acute disease did not appear to be more frequent among any one class of persons than another; not even among miners, who, as we have already seen, are especially obnoxious to the common causes of it, variety of temperature and exposure to wet, and among whom, as we shall shew hereafter, the idiopathic chronic catarrh, the effect of their peculiar habits, is so much more prevalent than among the other classes of the community. The Landsend district has been visited with the epidemic influenza equally with other parts of the kingdom.
Ophtlalmia.—Common catarrhal ophthalmia, and also strumous ophthalmia, appeared to me more than commonly prevalent at Penzance, one-thirty-ninth part of the total diseases seeming to be a very large proportion for ophthalmia. And it is to be observed, that nearly all the cases included in the tables were unconnected with the mining population, among whom the disease is very common from surgical causes. I am not aware that common acute idiopathic ophthalmia is more common among miners than the other classes of labourers.
- ↑ The proportion at Penzance is about 1 in 15; at Plymouth, 1 in 103; at London, 1 in 4.5.
