We cannot refrain from stating our belief, and this on the authority of
intelligent physicians, as well as from personal observation, that much
mischief is done by committing invalids to long and precarious journeys,
for the sake of doubtful benefits. We have ourselves seen consumptive
patients hurried along, through all the discomforts of bad roads, bad
inns, and indifferent diet, to places, where certain partial advantages
of climate poorly compensated for the loss of the many benefits which
home and domestic care can best afford. We have seen such invalids lodged
in cold, half-furnished houses, and shivering under blasts of wind from
the Alps or Apennines, who might more happily have been sheltered in the
vales of Somerset or Devon. On this topic, however, we refrain from
saying more--further than to state our belief, that much misapprehension
generally prevails, as to the comparative healthiness of England, and
other parts of Europe. Certain phrases respecting climate have obtained
fashionable currency amongst us, which greatly mislead the judgment as to
facts. The accurate statistical tables, now extended to the greater part
of Europe, furnish more secure grounds of opinion; and from these we
derive the knowledge, that there is no one country in Europe where the
average proportion of mortality is so small as in England. Some few
details on this subject we subjoin,--tempted to do so by the common
errors prevailing in relation to it.
The proportion of deaths to the population is nearly one-third less in
England than in France. Comparing the two capitals, the average mortality
of London is about one-fifth less than that of Paris. What may appear a
more singular statement, the proportion of deaths in London, a vast and
luxurious metropolis, differs only by a small fraction from that of the
whole of France; and is considerably less than the average of those
Mediterranean shores which are especially frequented by invalids for the
sake of health. In Italy, the proportion of deaths is a full third
greater than in England; and even in Switzerland and Sweden, though the
difference be less, it is still in favour of our own country.--_Q. Rev_.
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