Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 4.djvu/322

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MEDICAL TOPOGRAPHY


B. Of those in good health—

The average age is 25
The average number of years of under-ground labour 13

Of those affected with dyspnasa and pain of chest—

The average age is 32
The average number of years under ground 18

C. The actual distribution of the ages through the different periods of life, among 120 working miners, is as follows:-

From 10 to 15 15 to 20 20 to 25 25 to 30 30 to 35 35 to 40 40 to 45 45 to 50 50 to 55 55 to 60 60 to 65 65 to 70
1 18 25 25 18 10 9 9 4 1 0 0

Thus, out of 120 men, 5 only, or 1-24th part, are found capable of active labour beyond the 50th year, and 40, or 1-3rd, are already affected with a disease which will, in all likelihood, carry them to a premature grave; corroborating, in a striking manner, the statistical results in the former part of this paper, viz. how small is the proportion of this class of men found beyond the middle periods of life.

D. It appears that a very considerable proportion of these men, viz. 10 (or 1-12th), are subject habitually to pains in the stomach or bowels; a circumstance well worthy of notice relatively to what we shall find the general opinion of the medical men of this district, as to the character of the pectoral diseases of miners, viz. its marked complication with dyspeptic symptoms.

4. The unanimous testimony of the whole profession, in the west of Cornwall, goes to establish the great comparative unhealthiness of miners, and the premature death of a great proportion of them from diseases occasioned by their mode of life. Perhaps