On the numerical ratio of disease in the adult male community : deduced from the sanitary statistics of Her Majesty's Customs, London, for the years 1857-74 / by Walter Dickson.

Date:
1876
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the numerical ratio of disease in the adult male community : deduced from the sanitary statistics of Her Majesty's Customs, London, for the years 1857-74 / by Walter Dickson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    their holds and engine-rooms, which are of a very high temperature, many degrees above that of the air on deck ; and these officers are, therefore, much exposed to extreme vicissitudes in their “ rummaging” duties, as well as having much muscular exertion in rowing about the river. The out-door officers are chiefly in charge of imports and ex- ports, and are employed in the various water-side and water-guard duties of lockers, weighers, and tide-waiters in vaults and warehouses where goods subject to revenue are stored, or on the wharves and docks . where they are landed. As fires are prohibited in such places, the exposure to cold in winter is considerable. These circumstances are mentioned thus incidentally to show that this body of men, with few exceptions, have as laborious duties to perform, and are as much sub- jected to the influence of climate, as any body of workers in the com- munity. They enjoy the advantages, common to all civil servants of the State, of permanent employment, fair remuneration, and the prospect of a pension when incapacitated by age or infirmity. They are all sub- mitted to medical examination before entering the service, and are, therefore, presumably free from constitutional disease or patent defect, and in possession of fair physical strength. In consequence of suc- cessive changes in the tariff, their number until lately gradually decreased, no appointments having been made for some years to sup- ply the vacancies which have occurred from death, superannuation, promotion, etc.; and the average age of the Customs officers is, there- fore, considerably higher than it was a few years ago, and may be com- puted at present to be about 38 years : an important fact to be taken into account in relation to their sanitary condition. For upwards of half a century, records exist of the sickness and mortality of the force; and these documents since 1854, when all the subaltern officers of Customs were placed under the immediate care and surveillance of the medical inspector, have been kept with increased minuteness and accuracy, so as to present a continuous and complete series of sani- tary data, embodied in the weekly, quarterly, and annual tables and reports of the department. During the twenty-eight years over which these reports extend, the mean annual number of the force in medical charge has varied from 1337, the maximum, to 923, the minimum. The mean strength of the whole period has been 1130. The mean age of the force has increased proportionally in the period from an annual average of 33 to 38 years, but may be assumed with tolerable accuracy to have