I will add only one more illustration of these losses, which is always suggested by looking at tables of mortality. The deaths of persons between twenty-five and forty-five years old, that is during what may be deemed the twenty best working years of life, are annually between 60,000 and 70,000; in 1882 they were 66,000. Think, now, of the work lost by these deaths; and of how much of it might have been saved by better sanitary provisions. If one looks at the causes of their deaths, it is certain that many might have been prevented, or, at least, deferred. Say that they might have lived an average of two years more; and we should have had in this year and last an increase of work equivalent to that of at least 6,000,000 weeks; as much, in other words, as 6,000,000 people could do in one week.
More instances of losses of work by sickness and premature death might easily be given, but not easily listened to in this huge hall. Let these suffice to show something of our enormous annual loss, not only of personal and domestic happiness—that is past imagining—but of national power and wealth. Surely we ought to strive more against it.
But, some may ask, can these things be prevented? are they not inevitable consequences of the manner of life in which we choose or are compelled to live? No; certainly they are not. No one who lives among the sick can doubt that a very large proportion of the sickness and the loss of work which he sees might have been prevented; or can doubt that, in every succeeding generation, a larger proportion still may be averted, if only all men will strive that it may be so.
Let me enumerate some of the chief sources of the waste as they appear to one's self in practice.
Of the infectious fevers, small-pox might be rendered nearly harmless by complete and careful vaccination. Typhus and typhoid, scarlet fever and measles might, with proper guards against infection, be confined within very narrow limits. So, probably, might whooping-cough and diphtheria.
Of the special diseases of artisans there are very few of which the causes might not be almost wholly set aside. Of the accidents to which they are especially liable, the greater part, by far, are due to carelessness.
Of the diseases due to bad food and mere filth; to intemperance; to immorality—in so far as these are self-induced—they might, by self-control and virtue, be excluded. And with these, scrofula, rickets, scurvy, and all the wide-spread defects related to them, these might be greatly diminished.
It can only be a guess, but I am sure it is not a reckless one, if I say that of all the losses of work of which I have spoken, of all the millions of weeks sadly spent and sadly wasted, a fourth part might have been saved, and that, henceforth, if people will have it so, a still larger proportion may be saved.
