A paper on the influence of clays and limestones on medical geography : illustrated by the geographical distribution of cancer among females, in England and Wales / by Alfred Haviland.

Haviland, Alfred, -1903.

Date:: 1891

Credit: A paper on the influence of clays and limestones on medical geography : illustrated by the geographical distribution of cancer among females, in England and Wales / by Alfred Haviland. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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$mortality districts are comparatively on high ground, not subject, to floods, and mostly characterised by calcareous rocks. One. of the functions of the medical geographer is to ascertain where certain diseases prevail, and to indicate those areas on his map as guides to other investigators who have op- portunities of studying the causes of such prevalence on the spot, as well as others who are studying the natural history of such diseases, and especially those engaged in bacteriology; and lastly, to the busy medical practitioner who requires to know at once, for the sake of the patients who consult him as to where they ought not to reside if they would avoid the diseases they dread, and where are to be found the localities in which there is the greatest chance of escaping them. The facts which drew my attention to this subject first were as follows : (i) In 1868 I showed, by means of the map of the Geographical Distribution of Cancer among Females at all Ages, during the ten years 1851-1830 {a) that the groups of districts having the lowest mortality from these causes were to be found where the limestones and chalk characterised the sites ; and {]}) that, on the contrary, the highest mortality was to be found where the clays of different formations abounded and were subject to be flooded by \\\q: extravasated waters of fully formed' rivers. (2) In 1875, in the first edition of my work on disease dis- tribution, I drew attention to the remarkable fact that cancer among women did not thrive in chalk districts, and referred to the infrequency of this disease where this formation predomi- nated as follows :— The essentially chalk county of Hamp- shire is remarkably free from cancer where this formation predominates; its rivers, the Test and the Itchen, have their origin in the chalk hills ; they are genuine rivers of the chalk and possess these remarkable characteristics :—from the absor- bent nature of the formation which gives them rise, they do not swell suddenly after heavy rains, nor do they flood their banks ; they retain a very equable height during summer and winter, neither drying up in a drought nor flooding their vicinity after a deluge of rain or sudden thaws; their waters are seldom coloured —in fact they are the least alluvial of our rivers. We must, however, remember not to confound these rivers from the chalk, with those which only pass through the chalk, after rising from the heights of other formations, such as those$