, 1885-10-17
COMFORT AND LONGEVITY.
How Wealth IenEthens the Average I.ite
-Ten-ments E~pidamics.

How Wealth IsnEthsn. tho Average I.itp
-Ten-ment.- ~Epidamics.
Science
Josef Korosi is the director OF the
bureau of statistics in Budapest, and he
hal apparently brought to his WORK II
mind well adapted to the difficult task
OF handling figures in bulk. The ESSAY
which he presents to US under the above
title was read in september last before
the Association oil Hygiene in Berlin.
and in il he has confined himself to u
few points only. lie has cndelvored to
determine the influence which the
vary ing pecuniary conditions of
life, with their attendant priv
the longevity Of the people of his city.
For convenience lie recogni es four
classes, according to their endowment
in worldly goods those who are very
rich at one end of the category and
those who suffer from alb ect pow
erty at the other. Between these eN-
tremes lie the great mass Of the people,
whom he divides into the middle class
and the ordinary poor.
lie does not claim that his figures
possess an absolute mathematical value,
because he could not determine the
number of living individuals in each
category. but by excluding children
under ) years of age, and taking the
average age of those dying during a
period Of < years, he found that the
rich class averages - years of life, the
middle class averages 80 years III
months of life, the poor class averages
II years : months of life. From this it
is obvious that the possession Of wealth,
and the resultant exemption from pri-
walton, lengthen the average life nearly
ten years
The second point which he studied
was the relation existing between cpl
demic infectious diseases and the pc
cuniary status of the different grades Of
the community. Upon this point he
finds that poverty does not exercise n
uniform influence upon the occurrence
Of these diseases; indeed, viewing them
as q whole, the well-endowed, excepting
the very richest, are more seriously af-
ficted than the poor.
Viewing the infectious diseases sep
arately he finds that cholera, smallpox,
measles and typhus, are more prevalent
AIMING Ah0 HOOlH nhlA0 AiHAAAAtA ~
Group, whooping cough and scarlet fever
are more prevalent among the rich.
Consumption and pneumonia claim the
poor, and brain troubles attack the rich.
In view Of legislative action regarding
the abodes Of the poor, Korosi next studied
the in iuenee of basement tenements
upon the occurrence of epidemics, and he
found that, taking infectious diseases as
n whole, they are q per cent. more fire.
quent in the collar than the elevated
tenements. The cellar residence, how
ever. does not favor all dieases alike.
Measles and w%hooping cough are very
prevalent there, Group less so, while
diphtheria and scarlet-fever are 10 per
cent. less frequent among cellar inhab-
itants than among those most loftily
housed This is in accordance with sta
tistics from other places, and notably
from Boston, where epidemics of
diphthoria have swept over the finest
part Of the ci y. and have left the low
sections and cellar regions almost
exempt.
lastly, horosi considers the influence
OF crowding upon epidemics. To OBJ
tain a standard, he noted the number
of rooms in zach house, and the number
Of people occupying them. Combining
these figures, he obtained the average
number of persons per room. A pos
session OF one or two persons to each
room was taken as normal, while three,
four and five persons per room were
considered OVERLOOKING. He found that
the intensity Of some infectious dis
eases was notably increased in the
crowded tenemcnts. This increase
amounted to 80 per cent. for measles
in houses inhabited by more than ite
persons per room. Mhooping cough
Is like these greatly intensified by
crowding. On the other hand, it does
not appear that scarlet fever and diph-
liberia are similarly favored by the in
creased number of people in the house.
These are rather surprising conclusions,
aud MAY find their explanation when
VT discover the name in which these
various diseases are transmitted from
person to person.