1861-03-02-New York Dispatch-Disease and Mortality in the Metropolis

Disease and Mortality in the Metropolis

New York Dispatch, 2 March 1861, p. 4

Disease and Mortality in the Metropolis!!! Information upon this subject derives a much increased interest from the important statistical reports of deaths which have emanated from the City Inspector's Department fr two years past. The Report for 1860 is especially interesting. The Registrar of Records and Statistics in that DepartmentDr. , Cyrus Ramsay, apparently, has devoted himself to an amount of pains taking in the duty devolved upon him, far in excess of the labors of his predecessors in office. …

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Contrasting the mortality of New York with that of other cities, the Doctor thinks unfair, unless due allowances first be made for the imperfections of the registration laws in the other large cities of the United States, and the peculiarities of emigration and other similar causes which increase our death-tables. As truths of the effects of emigration in this respect, the Doctor shows, by interesting tables, that when the foreigners came in greatest numbers, then did death do most work here—generally by epidemical fevers of the class which we have noticed as fast disappearing. The Doctor tells us that of 800 Mormons who landed here last June, 80 died within three weeks after landing, to his certain knowledge; and the deceased were all buried at the public expense. He thinks the atmosphere of New York is a species of sea air not over and above good for persons whose lungs are at all impaired; he recommends mountain air as the best atmospherical restorative for such persons. …