Clbiain Causes of Death in Relationship with Particular Conditions in Dublin.
Much evidence was laid before the Committee as to conditions in Dublin which might lie regarded as prejudicial to the public health.
The variety of these, instanced by one or more witnesses, is very great.
Some of the conditions so instanced, however, although |tely to give rise to nuisance, and therefore calling lor remedy, cannot be regarded *as hkely to lead to fatal illness, or even to ill-health ; while others can have but remote concern with the diseases that more especially contribute to the high death rate of Dublin.
Again, there are stilly other conditions, alleged to be among the causes of e\cessive | mortality in Dublin, which are not to be held accountable for any share in this excess.
'Prominent among these is the public water supply derived from the Vartry.
The 1 weight of evidence is strongly in favour of the purity of this water, and its suitability as 3 domestic supply.
Nor do the mortality statistics furnished by the Eegistrar-General, considered in the light of the distribution of disease in/the several sub-districts of the city, lend support to unfavourable ciiticism of the Vartry water.
For this supply serves the whole city uniformly; while diseases, such as Enteric Fever, some-limes referable to impure water, axe unequal in their degree of incidence on the various I districts of Dublin.
The suggestion that use of this water leads to undue prevalence of Rickets, receives no support from the statistics given by the Registrar-General on this subject, for the number of deaths referred to Rickets in Dublin during the five * years 1894-8 averaged little more than three per year.
These figures are so small !
that much importance is not to be attached to a rate based upon them; but such inference as may be drawn from the comparative death rates from this cause in Dublin and in London, respectively, are in favour of Dublin.
In London the death rate from Rickets during the five years 1894-8 was five times as great as that in Dublin during the same period.
But, indeed, the belief that absence of lime from drinking water may give rise to Rickets is no longer generally held.
Considerable strews also was laid on intemperance as conducive to high mortality in Dublin.
Intemperance is, in all towns, directly, as well as indirectly, causative of death, The question, therefore, is not whether intemperance contributes to the death rate in Dublin, but whether its contribution is relatively greater in Dublin than in other large towns.
The figures £>ivon by the Registrar-General as to deaths directly referable to intemperance in Dublin, show that the death rate from this cause is some¬ what less there than it is in London.
Intemperance is also indirectly contributory to the death rate mainly by causing increase of diseases of the liver (included in diseases of the Digestive System), of the Nervous System, of the Urinary System, and in some degree of Phthisis.
The death rate from all these groups of diseases is higher in Dublin than in London.
It should be noted, however, that the excess is small as regards diseases of the Urinary System and of the Digestive System.
Nevertheless, in riew of the complexity of other causes that play a part in raising the death rate from these groups of disease, coupled with absence of excess in deaths directly referable to ilcoholisoi, it cannot properly be accepted that there is a relatively greater amount of ^intemperance in Dublin than in London.
Undue stress also was laid by several witnesses on the density of population on ^ea ia Dublin as a condition calculated to be detrimental to the Public Health.
R is afcmated that in Dublin there are 65'6 persons per acre ; while in No.
2 South City District the proportion reaches 124'4 persons per acre.
It is a matter of general igreement that high density of population upon area is, other things being equal, fjt% to be associated with'a higher death rate than a low density of population upon «ea would be; but so complex are the circumstances of life in civilised communities ^ further inference than this is likely to prove misleading.
As an instance of the ^reliability of guidance by density of population, unqualified by other considera-t10^ rnay be cited several London districts that have a much higher degree of density 4 Population than Dublin, or any of its registration Sub-districts, along with a markedly lower death rate ; while the Borough of West Ham, with an estimated feflsity of 60-9 persons per acre in 1898, had in that year a death rate of only 15*4 f 1.001)
of the population.
Indeed, in Dublin itself, the death rates m the several ^ration Sub-districts are, as will be seen from the Registrar-General's statistics, ar lrom parallel with density of population.
Bjrcthe facts which came to the knowledge of the Committee clearly establish the ^stence in Dublin, in an-exceptional degree, of several conditions which are wont to be
