Brighton as a health resort / by Alfred Haviland.

  • Haviland, Alfred, -1903.
Date:
[1882]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Brighton as a health resort / 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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    THE OUTER PROTECTIVE SEMICIRCLE. It consits of the following heights which surround the country between the South Downs and Brighton :— Name of Height. | Height in feet. I Direction. Distance from Junction Parade in Miles. Southwick Hill 200 W.N.W. 5 Tbunderbarrow Hill 472 W.N.VV. 6 Edburton (Camp) 600 N.W. 61 Devil’s Dyke (Camp) 697 N.W. bv N. 51 Woolstonbury (Camp) 600 N. by W. 61 New Barn Hill 722 N. 52 813 N. by E. 5i Plumpton Plain 713 N.N.E. 6i Mount Harry 639 N.E. 61 Kingston Hill 586 E.N.E. 5 High Hill 412 E. 4 Looe’s Barn Hill 300 E. by S. i 42 Street Arrangements and Air-Flushing. Between thirteen and fourteen years ago there occurred several sudden deaths from heart disease among those who travelled almost daily by rail between London and Brighton. For a time these cases arrested public attention, and caused comments to be made in the medical journals. It was generally believed that the excitement and hurry to which many were subject in going to and from home and office had much to do in the causing of these sudden deaths, and undoubtedly the history of several of them warranted the belief. At length (in 18G8) a middle aged woman expired in one of the Underground Railway carriages, and at the inquest it was proved that she had hurried to catch the train immediately after a hearty meal. The medical evidence showed that this poor woman had a diseased heart, and a stomach filled with a meal just taken. Her full stomach oppressed her diseased heart and the excitement of her hurry strained it beyond its feeble powers. It collapsed beyond recovery, and death was the result. Soon after the occurrence of this typical case others followed, and the several inquests that were held upon them revealed histories similar in their main features. These cases made a deep impression on the public mind, and as a warning to railway passengers I wrote an article for one of the Medical Journals entitled “Hurried to Death.” This article was replanted and published in a separate form, soon after, by Mr. Renshaw and Mr. Mitchell. Whilst it was going through the press it occurred to me to enquire whether heart disease was more prevalent in some parts of England and Wales than in others. I consulted the Death Returns of the Registrar General and found that, during the ten years 1851-60, two hundred and thirty six thousand nine hundred and seventy three deaths were attributed to Heart Disease and Dropsy. These deaths I found most irregularly distributed throughout the Registrar’s divisions, counties, and 625 districts. The average annual rate of mortality to every 1,000 persons living having been ascertained, I colored all the high mortality districts, or those above the average, blue in different shades, and all the low mortality district', or those below the average, red in different shades. The highest mortality being represented by the deepest blue (the colour of venous blood) and the lowest mortality by the brightest red (the colour of arterial blood). When my map was fully colored it presented the remarkable appearance which characterises those I have published in my work on “ Geography of Heart Disease, Cancer, and Phthisis in England and Wales.” On carefully studying the several groups of high and low mortality in connection with the physical geography of our country I found that the lesson it taught was as remarkable as its appearance. It taught the grandest lesson of the effect of ventilation, and of the want of it, on the public health that it was possible to conceive. All the blue (high mortality) districts wex-e to be found in those parts of England and Wales that were most sheltered from the pi-evailing winds. (2) The degree of high mortality was influenced by the valley system, and in the direct ratio of a valley being shut out from the full advantage of being air-flushed by the winds so was the rate of mortality from heart disease. (3) Wherever the prevailing winds had free access, wherever the axes of the valleys and the rivers were in a line with those winds and the tidal wave, there was to be found the lowest mortality from this cause of death. (4) The degree of mortality was lowered in the direct ratio of the completeness of the air-flushing in these valleys. I made a further investigation and found that in all the high mortality districts i-heumatism prevailed, and that it was rai’e in those where there was the least heart disease. The connection between rheumatism and heart disease has long been well known to the medical profession, and it is well established that the heart disease which kills so many thousands annually has its origin in some one of the many forms of rheumatism. The pent up valleys in some of the loveliest spots in England are never thoroughly flushed of their air sewage, in fact never thoroughly ventilated; the consequence being that they are often cold, damp, and filled with the air of vegetal decomposition, whilst the heights which wall them in are warm, dry, pure, bracing, and full of health. Frosts affect potatoes and fruit more frequently in the dewy calm air of a valley bottom than they do on the heights above, where the air is constantly changed. In such valleys man contracts rheumatism, the basis of the national heart