Death in Victorian Toronto, 1850-1899.

Death in Victorian Toronto, 1850-1899. Abstract A study of the 24,124 deaths recorded in the burial registers ofthe Potter's Field Cemetery and the Necropolis necropolis:see cemetery. necropolis(Greek: “city of the dead”) Extensive and elaborate burial place serving an ancient city. The locations of these cemeteries varied. from 1850 to 1899,indicates that Toronto, like other nineteenth-century cities,experienced very high mortality. The average age at death rose graduallyover the fifty-year period, but infants under the age of one yearconstituted over 40 percent of all burials. Tuberculosis was the leadingcause of death among adults, while poor water produced substantialmortality from typhoid typhoidor typhoid feverAcute infectious disease resembling typhus (and distinguished from it only in the 19th century). Salmonella typhi, usually ingested in food or water, multiplies in the intestinal wall and then enters the bloodstream, causing . Resume L'examen des 24 124 deces consignes dans les registres descimetieres Potter's Field et Necropolis de 1850 a 1899 montre quele taux de mortalite n'etait pas moins eleve a Toronto que dans lesautres villes due XIX siecle. La moyenne d'age au deces augmentegraduellement durant ces 55 annees, mais on constate que plus de 40% desdecedes sont des enfants de moins d'un an. Parallelement a latuberculose, principale cause de mortalite chez chez?prep.At the home of; at or by.[French, from Old French, from Latin casa, cottage, hut.]chezprepat the home of [French] les adultes, latyphoide, causee par la mauvaise qualite de l'eau potable potable/pot��a��ble/ (po��tah-b'l) fit to drink. po��ta��bleadj.Fit to drink; drinkable.potablefit to drink. , fait desravages importants. ********** The study of historical demography Historical demography is a quantitative study of history of human population, developed and popularized in 20th century by French historian Louis Henry. It is considered both a supporting science of history and a part of demography. in Canada has been hampered bythe relative lateness of the establishment of an efficient nationalsystem of civil registration. In addition, there are in English Canada English Canada is a term used to describe one of the following: English Canadians, a term usually meaning English-speaking or anglophone Canadians, the official language majority in the country except New-Brunswick and Quebec as well. no systematic parish records upon which the historian can draw fordemographic research. (1) Despite these handicaps, a major contributionin the field has been made by Robert Bourbeau and Jacques Legare intheir pioneering study of Canadian mortality between 1831 and 1932. (2)However, as they point out, before 1931 the censuses provide us withonly the number of deaths for the years preceding their publication; inother words Adv. 1. in other words - otherwise stated; "in other words, we are broke"put differently all we have at the national level from the census of 1852until that of 1921 is a snapshot of mortality once every ten years.Furthermore, the figures are not reliable, since they are based on humanmemory, and very likely underestimate the mortality of those who diedalone. (3) Another problem bedeviling the history of Canadian demography isthe high rate of in-and-out migration in comparison with much morestable countries like Britain and France. Most demographic techniquesassume either that the population under study is closed or thatmigration into or out of the population is negligible. For Canada thisis manifestly untrue. During most of the 19th century there wassubstantial immigration immigration,entrance of a person (an alien) into a new country for the purpose of establishing permanent residence. Motives for immigration, like those for migration generally, are often economic, although religious or political factors may be very important. from England, Scotland, Ireland and the UnitedStates United States,officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. . Nevertheless, it is generally agreed that the latter part of thecentury witnessed a net loss of population owing to owing toprep.Because of; on account of: I couldn't attend, owing to illness.owing toprep → debido a, por causa demigration to the US.The deficit was more than made up by the great waves of Europeanimmigration that took place in the first two decades of this century. Based on the available information about crude death rates and thepercentage of the population aged 65 years and over, which is availablefor the whole country decennially from 1851 and for Quebec from 1831,Bourbeau and Legare have produced the following table for lifeexpectancy Life Expectancy1. The age until which a person is expected to live.2. The remaining number of years an individual is expected to live, based on IRS issued life expectancy tables. at birth ([e.sub.[o]]) of men and women. This is comparedwith the figures derived from the Ledermann standard life table. (4) Both tables show a significant rise in life expectancy over thishalf century, due in the main, apparently, to improved public health.(5) It is widely recognized that mortality was much higher in 19thcentury cities than it was in the countryside. (6) With reference toEngland and Wales England and Wales are both constituent countries of the United Kingdom, that together share a single legal system: English law. Legislatively, England and Wales are treated as a single unit (see State (law)) for the conflict of laws. , Wrigley and Schofield have concluded that "therapid rise in the proportion of the population living in cities had muchto do with the absence of any significant improvement in expectation oflife between 1820 and 1870." (7) Another salient feature of later 19th century demography in Europeand North America North America,third largest continent (1990 est. pop. 365,000,000), c.9,400,000 sq mi (24,346,000 sq km), the northern of the two continents of the Western Hemisphere. is the higher life expectancy of women over men. It isnow recognized that maternal mortality in childbirth prior to the 20thcentury was not as high as some have thought, (8) and in the latter partof the 19th century, women appear to have widened the gap even further.In England at least the drop in female mortality does not appear to havebeen brought about by any improvement in the safety of childbirth.Rather it is attributable to a disproportionately rapid fall in femaledeaths from the greatest killer of the 19th century: tuberculosis. Inmid-Victorian England about half the women who died between the ages of15 and 35 were killed by some form of consumption. In contrast, no morethan one per cent of these women died from pregnancy orchildbirth-related difficulties. In the 1840s and 1850s about eight percent more women than men died from tuberculosis. After the 1880showever, it had become a disease that regularly struck more males thanfemales. (9) It remains to be seen whether the Canadian experience ofmale/female mortality was similar in the Victorian age. Given the unsatisfactory nature of national census records, thebest hope of obtaining a more accurate picture of Canada'sdemographic history Demographic history may refer to: Demographic history of the United States Demographic history of Macedonia Demographic history of Montenegro History of the demographics of Bosnia and Herzegovina Demographic history of Portugal lies in local studies. Cemetery records haveremained a largely untapped source until very recently. The city ofToronto, for example, boasts four sets of well-kept cemetery registersdating from the second half of the 19th century and before. Thosebelonging to the Toronto Necropolis, St James' Cemetery and thePotter's Field Cemeteries are preserved. The register of theCatholic Cemetery of St Michael are kept by the Catholic Archdiocese ofToronto. This article is based on a tabulation of 24,124 deaths recorded inthe Necropolis and Potter's Field registers from 1850 to 1899. Therecords of the St Paul's and St Michael's cemeteries remain tobe examined. The Potter's Field Cemetery was created for poorpeople, and was closed in 1855. Its records yield a total of 1,817deaths for the six years 1850-55. This number is too small to yield anymeaningful insights into the contrast between mortality among the poorand the better off. What makes the Necropolis register a gratifyingly grat��i��fy?tr.v. grat��i��fied, grat��i��fy��ing, grat��i��fies1. To please or satisfy: His achievement gratified his father.See Synonyms at please.2. rich source, apart from the very large number of entries, is the rangeof information it provides. Each entry contains five pieces of data forthe deceased person: name, sex, cause of death, age at death, and placeor country of birth. The information is not without its difficulties.The causes of death, for example, frequently diverge from modern medicalcategories. They sometimes turn out to be more a description of symptomsthan an accurate etiology of the disease that brought about the death.Even though most entries appear to have been based on a doctor'sreport rather than the impression of the scribe (as in earliercenturies), the descriptions include some relatively unhelpful termssuch as ague ague(a��gu)1. a chill.2. old name for malaria.a��guen.1. , bleeding, bowel complaint, cholic, convulsions, croup croup(krp), acute obstructive laryngitis in young children, usually between the ages of three and six. ,dropsy dropsy:see edema. , fever, natural decay, old age, palsy, sudden death, water on thebrain, and vomiting. Other entries inadvertently provoke a smile: kickedby horse, hit by shovel, and visitation of God. Nevertheless, the numberof these obscure entries is quite low. Apart from convulsions,inflammation, and debility debility/de��bil��i��ty/ (de-bil��i-te) asthenia. de��bil��i��tyn.The state of being weak or feeble; infirmity. the most common causes of death fall intocategories familiar to modern medicine: consumption, stillbirth,bronchitis, cholera, scarlet fever scarlet feveror scarlatina,an acute, communicable infection, caused by group A hemolytic streptococcal bacteria (see streptococcus) that produce an erythrogenic toxin. , lung disease lung diseasePulmonary disease Pulmonology Any condition causing or indicating impaired lung function Types of LD Obstructive lung disease–↓ in air flow caused by a narrowing or blockage of airways–eg, asthma, emphysema, chronic bronchitis; , whooping cough whooping coughor pertussis,highly communicable infectious disease caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. The early or catarrhal stage of whooping cough is manifested by the usual symptoms of an upper respiratory infection with ,typhoid, dysentery dysentery(dĭs`əntĕr'ē), inflammation of the intestine characterized by the frequent passage of feces, usually with blood and mucus. and diarrhoea. Suicide was rare in the first third of the period (1850-67: fourmales and two females), but became much more common in the middle third(1868-85: eighteen males and five females), while declining slightlytowards the end of the century (1886-99: ten males and four females).While there were great fluctuations in the suicide rate, therelationship between the male and female rates remained fairly stable:women were only about a third as likely as men to take their own lives.How many suicides were concealed in other categories can never be known.One wonders, for example, how many of the frequent drownings weresuicides. Another problem raised by the sources is the category of unknown. Asmall proportion of deaths list sex as unknown. The great bulk of these,however, were stillbirths, and it seems probable that most of therest--who died mainly of convulsions, respiratory or gastriccomplaints--were newborn babies. One must also be cautious about theaccuracy of estimates of age in an era before most people possessedbirth certificates, and when there is no way of checking the age statedby their closest relative or caregiver against an objective source likea parish register. It remains to be seen whether the tendency for thenumbers in the first half of each decade of life to be overstated o��ver��state?tr.v. o��ver��stat��ed, o��ver��stat��ing, o��ver��statesTo state in exaggerated terms. See Synonyms at exaggerate.o , aswas discovered in England, will be found for this cohort. (10)Fortunately, the proportion of entries for which the place of birth andthe cause of death are unknown, is quite low, which increases the valueof this source for the study of migration and disease respectively. A final problem connected with the records of the Necropolis andPotter's Field cemeteries is that they exclude most of the Catholicpopulation who were buried in St Michael's cemetery. Thus, theIrish population, most of whom were Catholic, are underrepresented. Ithas been observed that the Irish Catholic Irish Catholics is a term used to describe people of Roman Catholic background who are Irish or of Irish descent.The term is of note due to Irish immigration to many countries of the English speaking world, particularly as a result of the Irish Famine in the 1840s - 1850s, population in American citiesexperienced the highest mortality of any ethnic group. (11) The recordsof the Necropolis indicate that there was also a substantial populationof Irish protestants dwelling in Victorian Toronto. Their pattern ofmortality was probably closer to that of the Scots and English than itwas to their Catholic compatriots. The cemetery records are invaluable in providing a pre-censusglimpse of the ethnic origins of Toronto's population. While thepopulation of Canada as a whole declined slightly toward the end of the19th century, Toronto grew by leaps and bounds (Table three). (12) The place of origin of those who died in the second half of thenineteenth century is shown in Table Four. Bearing in mind that the bulk of the Irish population would havebeen buried in the Catholic cemetery, and therefore do not show up inthese figures, the pattern of ethnic origin is similar to thatdiscovered by Masters for the mid-century. (13) At first glance what is striking about the cemetery records is thehigh number of people born in Toronto. However, the bulk of theToronto-born were children. If those below the age of 16 weresubtracted, the proportion of the adult population born in Toronto wouldbe seen to be much smaller. The average age of the adults (aged sixteenand over) who were buried in the necropolis rose from 43.9 to 56 betweenand middle and the end of the century. (Table Six). The mention of those who died under the age of 16 brings us to thequestion of infant and child mortality. The data reveal that betweenthirty and forty-six of those whose deaths were recorded in the twocemeteries were under one year old. (Table Seven). Given the high rateof Catholic Irish mortality in other North American North Americannamed after North America.North American blastomycosissee North American blastomycosis.North American cattle ticksee boophilusannulatus. cities during thisera, it is unlikely that the population buried in St Michael'swould have experienced a lower infant mortality (hardware) infant mortality - It is common lore among hackers (and in the electronics industry at large) that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since first use (that is, until the relatively distant time at which enough mechanical . (14) Toronto's infant mortality in the later nineteenth century wastherefore shockingly high. Indeed, the rate may have exceeded that whichprevailed in England and Wales between the sixteenth and eighteenthcenturies, and may even have exceeded the infant mortality of the greatBritish industrial cities in the nineteenth. (15) Further research willbe needed to determine precisely the reasons for Toronto's veryhigh infant and child mortality in the nineteenth century There can belittle doubt, however, that the underlying causes of infant mortalitywere poor nutrition, poor sanitation and the absence of immunization immunization:see immunity; vaccination. from those manifold childhood diseases whose existence is only a dimmemory today--diptheria, whooping cough, polio, scarlet fever--as wellas the great nineteenth century killers--TB, cholera, typhoid andtyphus typhus,any of a group of infectious diseases caused by microorganisms classified between bacteria and viruses, known as rickettsias. Typhus diseases are characterized by high fever and an early onset of rash and headache. . Another cause of infant death must have been the ingestion ingestion/in��ges��tion/ (-chun) the taking of food, drugs, etc., into the body by mouth. in��ges��tionn.1. The act of taking food and drink into the body by the mouth.2. ofcontaminated cow's milk, leading to bovine tuberculosis. (16) Notuntil 1918 did Toronto pass the first ordinance requiring thepasteurization pasteurization(păs'chrĭzā`shən, -rīzā`shən), partial sterilization of liquids such as milk, orange juice, wine, and beer, as well as cheese, to destroy of milk. (17) What were the principal causes of death in Victorian Toronto, asrevealed by the records of the two cemeteries? In almost every year thesingle leading cause was consumption or tuberculosis. In the third quarter of the century tuberculosis deathsapproximately kept pace with the rise in population. In the last quarterof the century, however, mortality from this disease declinedabsolutely; as a proportion of the population it shrank even faster.Public health measures were beginning slowly to have their effect. (18) Tuberculosis may have been the most lethal, but the horror diseaseof the 19th century was cholera. Originating in India it first reachedCanada in 1831. coincidentally with a surge of Irish immigration. Therewere then repeated epidemics every few years in Canada between 1832 and1871. Cholera is caused by a bacillus bacillus(bəsĭl`əs), any rod-shaped bacterium or, more particularly, a rod-shaped bacterium of the genus Bacillus. Some bacterium in the genus cause disease, for example B. that can live independently inwater for lengthy periods. Once swallowed, if it survives within thestomach, it is capable of multiplying rapidly. (19) Its effect is tomake the walls of the intestine more permeable to water. The consequenceis vomiting, dehydration, spasms, cramps, a sunken face, blue skincolour and eventually kidney failure kidney failureor renal failurePartial or complete loss of kidney function. Acute failure causes reduced urine output and blood chemical imbalance, including uremia. Most patients recover within six weeks. . This process can take place withina matter of hours or days, and carries off at least half its victims.Today the disease is curable cur��a��bleadj.Capable of being cured or healed. with antibiotics and intravenoustransfusions. In the 19th century, however, there was no known cure. Itwas commonly believed that the disease was connected with filthy livingconditions, since it was mainly the poor who were afflicted. In Englandin 1848 Dr John Snow had established the correlation between theincidence of cholera and a contaminated water supply, but his findingswere not widely accepted by the medical profession until the 1880s. Thelast serious epidemic in Toronto occurred in 1854, though there was asteady mortality from the disease right until the end of the century. In1854 there were 183 burials due to the disease in the two cemeteries,the overwhelming majority occurring in Potter's Field at Yonge andBloor streets. (20) High though it was, the mortality rate in 1854 wassignificantly lower than it had been in 1834. "Butcher supplierswere cleaner, and water had been drained from stagnant cellars. Theclothing and bedding of the dead were destroyed by fire, or baked at ahigh temperature, and then thoroughly washed in chloride of lime chloride of lime:see bleaching powder. . Theinfected corpses were encased in coffins as soon as possible after deathand covered with 25 pounds of lime." (21) Typhoid is another water-borne disease which became a seriousthreat until the city took effective measures to protect its drinkingwater drinking watersupply of water available to animals for drinking supplied via nipples, in troughs, dams, ponds and larger natural water sources; an insufficient supply leads to dehydration; it can be the source of infection, e.g. leptospirosis, salmonellosis, or of poisoning, e.g. . In 1845 Toronto had built its main east-west sewer, placing theoutlet at the foot of Peter Street, adjacent to the waterworks intake.The quality of water was in consequence extremely variable. Witnesses ata major downtown fire in 1866 saw a fire engine spurt forth mud andcatfish that it had drawn from the hydrant at the corner of King andYonge Streets. The absence of any water filtration, combined with"the system obstinately persisted in, of emptying into the bay allthe filth of the city, public and private ..." constituted aserious health hazard health hazardOccupational safety Any agent or activity posing a potential hazard to health. Cf Physical hazard. . The hazard was compounded by the fact thatthousands of animals were slaughtered annually in the city, and theoffal discharged into the sewers, further contaminating the watersupply. If that were not bad enough, numerous cattle were fed on theslop from the Gooderham and Worts distillery, and the manure that wasemptied into Toronto Bay in the spring from this source "could bemeasured by the furlong." In the 1860s Toronto was thought by manyto be one of the dirtiest and unhealthiest cities on the continent. (22)The result of the city's carelessness about its water supply was asteadily increasing mortality from typhoid and other diseases. Typhoid deaths peaked in the 1870s. Until that decade the supply ofdrinking water had been in the hands of private companies. After atwenty-year campaign that had got underway in the 1850s a publicwaterworks was finally established. Typhoid deaths then dropped at thesame time that Toronto's population surged upward. The woodenconduit was replaced with steel in the late 1870s, (23) but this was notthe end of the city's tribulation over its water supply. Inaddition to the sewage that was piped into the Bay the contents of manydomestic privies continued to be dumped there. In August 1890 a pile wasinadvertently driven through the under water conduit pipe, causing it totake in a large quantity of contaminated water. In February 1893 theconduit pipe was again broken; it rose to the surface and sucked in alot of the human waste that had been deposited on the ice during thewinter. (24) The melancholy result of these accidents was that thereported cases of typhoid shot up in the fall of 1890 and 1891, and thelate winter of 1893. In the absence of systematic birth and death records we cannotarrive at precise figures for life expectancy in English Canada.However, the age-at-death figures from the cemetery records offer thenext best thing. They show that for Toronto from the 1850s to the 1890s,deaths in the first year of life constituted over 40 per cent of alldeaths recorded. Infant mortality improved very little in the late 19thcentury. If a child reached the age of five he had a fighting chance one dependent upon the issue of a struggle.See also: Fighting ofsurviving to middle age or beyond. The mean age at death of those overfive years old rose from 40.3 in 1868 to 52.1 in 1898. According to these figures the mean age at death in Toronto in thelate 19th century was dramatically lower than the life expectancydiscovered by Bourbeau and Legare for Quebec. Exact comparisons cannotbe made between figures for life expectancy([e.sub.[o]]) and figures forage at death, but even a rough comparison is illuminating. Anapproximate comparison is obtained if we add the life expectancy to theyear in which it was measured, and compare the age at death in Toronto.(See Table Eleven) The low age at death in Toronto is doubtless theproduct of two factors: the high proportion of immigrants in thepopulation, and the debilitating de��bil��i��tat��ingadj.Causing a loss of strength or energy.DebilitatingWeakening, or reducing the strength of.Mentioned in: Stress Reduction effects of the urban environment. Yetwe know that before the end of the century, if not earlier, Toronto hada lower death rate than most other large cities in North America andEurope. In 1866 the Medical Health Officer reported that Toronto'sdeath rate was 26.2 per thousand. (25) By 1897 that rate had shrunk to15.1 per thousand, and the Medical Health Officer was trumpeting thefact that among 34 European and North American cities, Toronto had thefifth lowest death rate. Montreal, by contrast, with 24.8 deaths perthousand population, had the second highest rate. As Terry Copp hasnoted, Montreal was one of the unhealthiest cities in the western worldin this period. (26) Toronto's mortality was also significantlylower than Boston and New York New York, state, United StatesNew York,Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of . The only major U.S. cities that werehealthier to live in than Toronto were apparently Chicago, Cleveland andMilwaukee. It may be significant that the Board of Health chose to dothese comparative studies, in the late 1890s when diptheria, typhoid andscarlet fever had subsided, rather than in the early years of thedecade, when all three infectious diseases had raged out of control. A propagandistic intent behind the studies purporting to showToronto's relative healthfulness health��ful?adj.1. Conducive to good health; salutary.2. Healthy. See Usage Note at healthy.health is also hinted at in thesuggestion that the improved mortality was owing to the establishment ofthe isolation hospital on Broadview Avenue in 1891. In an era wherecalomel cal��o��meln.A colorless, white or brown tasteless compound used as a purgative and an insecticide. Also called mercurous chloride.calomelsee mercurous chloride. (mercurious chloride) was still being used to treat diptheria,this is a dubious proposition. The steady rise in the age-at-death from the middle to the end ofthe 19th century was more likely the result of improvements inpreventive public health measures, and perhaps also in nutrition. Thereare virtually no developments in 19th-century medicine that had astatistically measurable impact on mortality. (27) Not until the use ofsulphanimides and antibiotics became widespread after the second worldwar was medical treatment a significant factor in reducing mortalityfrom infectious diseases. How many of the deaths recorded in the late 19th century could havebeen prevented by superior public health conditions, by antibiotics, orby other forms of medical intervention? Accurate answers to thesequestions are rendered impossible by the problems of nomenclature foundin the records. A variety of different terms are used for the same classof conditions. Furthermore, there is a general lack of a standardizednomenclature in the 19th century. Thus, the records show many deaths listed as paralysis, paralytic paralytic/par��a��lyt��ic/ (par?ah-lit��ik)1. affected with or pertaining to paralysis.2. a person affected with paralysis.par��a��lyt��icadj.1. stroke or hemiplegia hemiplegia/hemi��ple��gia/ (-ple��jah) paralysis of one side of the body.hemiple��gicalternate hemiplegia? paralysis of one side of the face and the opposite side of the body. . Apoplexy apoplexy:see stroke. is also given as a cause of death. In1853 it was defined as "a malady malady/mal��a��dy/ (-ah-de) disease. mal��a��dyn.A disease, disorder, or ailment.maladya disease or illness. , sudden in its attack, whicharrests the powers of sense and motion: usually caused by an effusion effusion/ef��fu��sion/ (e-fu��zhun)1. escape of a fluid into a part; exudation or transudation.2. effused material; an exudate or transudate. ofblood or serum in the brain, and preceded by giddiness, partial loss ofmuscular power, etc. Occasionally applied to the effusion of blood inother organs." (28) Paralysis is a frequent result of this kind ofattack. Sometimes one whole side of the body is affected (hemiplegia),while in other instances only the face, arm or leg on one side isaffected. Clearly, all these causes of death would now be classified asparalytic stroke. More difficult is the problem posed by the use of one term toidentify what are now recognized as a variety of diseases. Many adultsare described as dying from water in the head or water on the brain. Thedisease in question could be anything from meningitis to brain tumour,or even brain hemhorrage. Or, again, the term dropsy is sometimes used.Stedmen's Medical Dictionary defines it as "a morbidaccumulation of watery fluid in the serous serous/se��rous/ (ser��us)1. pertaining to or resembling serum.2. producing or containing serum.se��rousadj.Containing, secreting, or resembling serum. cavities and within theconnective tissue of the body." Today medical practitionersrecognize that it could represent kidney failure, heart failure or lungfailure. The obstacles posed by the differences in modern and 19th centurynomenclature, as well as the occasional vagueness of the records, werenot insuperable however. With the invaluable assistance of Dr MartinBarkin, former President of the Sunnybrook Medical Centre in Toronto, wehave divided the causes of death into four categories: A. Conditions which today are prevented through sanitation (sewersand water purification) or other public health measures (e.g.immunization); B. Infectious diseases which could be cured by modern antibioticsand/or surgical treatment with a high probability of success (excludingthose which would have already been prevented by public healthmeasures); C. Other conditions now treatable and curable with a highprobability of success; D. Conditions which, even it treatable by other methods today,still do not have an assured high probability of success. It is startling to realize that the great majority of death-dealingillnesses suffered by our ancestors are now preventable or treatable.Moreover, public health measures--the building of drains and sewers, thepiping of pure water to every household, and the institution oflarge-scale immunization programmes, have done more than all themeasures of active medical intervention put together to save humanlives. If we also bear in mind the unquantifiable effects of improvednutrition, it is abundantly evident that, despite current concerns aboutthe pollution of water and air, the modern city is a far healthier placeto live than its Victorian predecessor. [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] [GRAPHIC OMITTED] Notes (1) Kevin McQuillan, "Ontario Mortality Patterns,1861-1921," Canadian Studies in Population, vol. 12 (1985), 32. (2) Robert Bourbeau and Jacques Legare, Evolution de la Mortaliteau Canada et au Quebec, 1831-1931; Essai de mesure par generation(Montreal, 1982). (3) Ibid., 10; G.A. Condram and E. Crimmins, "A Descriptionand Evaluation of Mortality Data in the Federal Census: 1850-1900:,Historical Methods, vol. 12 (1979), 3-5. (4) Bourbeau and Legare, 20, 42. (5) McKeown, The Modern Rise of World Population (New York, 1976),121. (6) H. R. Lentzner, "Adult Mortality Estimates from SuccessiveCensuses: England and Wales in the nineteenth century", HistoricalMethods, vol. 18 (1985), 61. (7) Wrigley and Schofield, The Population History of England,1541-1871 (London, 1981), 475. (8) Lloyd Bonfield, et al., The World We Have Gained (Oxford,1987), 259. (9) Sheila R. Johansson, "Sex and Death in Victorian England:An examination of age and sex specific death rates, 1840-1910", inM. Vicinus, ed., A Widening Sphere: changing roles of Victorian women(Bloomington Indiana, 1977), 163-4, 169-70. (10) Wrigley & Schofield, Population History of England,109-10. (11) David Ward, Cities and Immigrants (New York, 1971), 109-15.See also, Murray W. Nicolson, "Peasants in an Urban Society: theIrish Catholics in Victorian Toronto", in Robert F. Harney, ed.,Gathering Place: Peoples and Neighbourhoods of Toronto, 1834-1945(Toronto, 1985), 58-9. (12) D. C. Masters, The Rise of Toronto (Toronto, 1947), 21, 73. (13) Ibid, 21, 73. (14) However, Nicholson discovered that infants accounted for 39%of the burials in St Michael's and St Paul's in 1855.('Peasants in an urban Society', loc. cit., 58. This isslightly lower than the figures derived from the Necropolis andPotter's Field). (15) Wrigley and Schofield, Population History of England, 249,472, 476, Wrigley and Schofield's figures range between 203 and 277per thousand. It is impossible to produce comparable figures forToronto, since we have no birth figures and therefore cannot express thedeaths as a proportion of the total population in a given age cohort. (16) M. W. Beaver, "Population, Infant Mortality andMilk", Population Studies, vol. 27 (1973), 254. (17) C. Godfrey, Medicine for Ontario (Belleville Ont., 1979), 157. (18) Heather MacDougall, "Health is Wealth: the development ofpublic health activity in Toronto 1834-1890" (University ofToronto Research at the University of Toronto has been responsible for the world's first electronic heart pacemaker, artificial larynx, single-lung transplant, nerve transplant, artificial pancreas, chemical laser, G-suit, the first practical electron microscope, the first cloning of T-cells, , unpublished PhD dissertation, 1982), 405-11. (19) William McNeill, Plagues and Peoples (New York, 1976), 261. (20) It should be noted that this finding is about 30% higher thanthe figure given by C. Godfrey in Medicine for Ontario, 150. Once thefigures from St Michael's Cemetery are tabulated the figure shouldrise substantially. (21) G. Bilson, A Darkened House (Toronto, 1980), 86, 17, 117;Godfrey, Medicine for Ontario, 153. (22) Minutes of the Proceedings of the Council of the Corporationof the City of Toronto (1866), Appendix 11, Report of the Medical HealthOfficers, 209-10; Eric James Jarvis, "Mid-Victorian Toronto: PanicPolicy and Public Response, 1857-1873", (University of WesternOntario Western is one of Canada's leading universities, ranked #1 in the Globe and Mail University Report Card 2005 for overall quality of education.[2] It ranked #3 among medical-doctoral level universities according to Maclean's Magazine 2005 University Rankings. , unpublished PhD dissertation, 1979), 236. (23) F. Jones and D. McCalla, "Toronto Waterworks,1840-77", Canadian Historical Review, 60 (1979), 300-4. (24) Annual Report of the Local Board of Health for the Year 1893(Toronto, 1894), 12. (25) Minutes ... of the City of Toronto (1866), Appendix 11, 212. (26) "Public Health in Montreal", in Medicine in CanadianSociety, ed. S.D.D. Shortt (Montreal, 1981), 395. (27) MacDougall, "Health is Wealth", 413; T. McKeown, TheModern Rise of World Population, 153; P. Herlihy, "Death inOdessa", Journal of Urban History, vol. 4 (1978), 432; E. Meeker,"The Improving Health of the United States, 1850-1915",Exploration in Economic History, vol. 9 (1971-72), 367-73. (28) Shorter Oxford English Dictionary Oxford English Dictionary(OED) great multi-volume historical dictionary of English. [Br. Hist.: Caught in the Web of Words]See : Lexicography (1853), quoted in E.Hancock, ed., Potter's Field Cemetery (Agincourt: Generation Press;1983), introduction (unpaginated un��pag��i��nat��ed?adj.Unpaged. ).Table 1 Canadian Life Expectancy in the Second Half of the NineteenthCentury [e.sub.o] (Bourbeau & [e.sub.o] (Lederman) Legare) m & f m f1851 29.98 40.03 42.141861 34.40 40.58 42.661871 37.50 41.41 43.761881 41.60 43.50 46.021891 44.45 43.92 46.491901 47.70 47.19 50.15Table 2 Deaths by suicide and drowning in late 19th-century Toronto 1850-67 1868-85 1886-99 totalssuicide: M 4 18 10 32 F 2 5 4 11drowning: M 56 102 39 197 F 14 15 5 34Table 3 Toronto's Population Growth, 1850-18901851 30,7751861 44,8211871 56,0001875 68,6781881 96,1961890 181,220Table 4 Place of Origin of People Buried in the Potter's Field andNecropolis Cemeteries, 1850-99 1850-54 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4 1875-9Toronto 169 996 1,413 1,598 2,137 2,291Rest of Ontario 5 7 --Rest of Canada and 8 81 74 135 285 242 NewfoundlandU.S.A. 5 138 130 115 110 100England 47 235 245 307 562 396Ireland 50 218 241 250 370 291Scotland 126 261 241 182 228 254Continental Europe 1 14 16 10 26 12West Indies 1 2 3 1 4 2Other 1 5 1 1 5 4Unknown 80 30 11 42 13 2Totals 493 1,987 2,375 2,641 3,740 3,594 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9 TotalToronto 1,698 1,305 1,136 1,136 13,879Rest of Ontario -- -- -- -- 12Rest of Canada and 159 158 355 322 1,819 NewfoundlandU.S.A. 65 47 63 56 829England 274 255 284 339 2,944Ireland 222 181 216 199 2,238Scotland 204 186 190 152 2,024Continental Europe 9 4 12 15 119West Indies -- -- 3 17Other 2 -- 2 2 23Unknown 1 8 4 29 220Totals 2,635 2,144 2,262 2,253 24,124Table 5 Ethnic Origin of Toronto Residents in the mid-nineteenth centuryPlace of Origin 1850 1861England and Wales 4,958 7,112Scotland 2,169 2,961Ireland 11,305 12,441Canadian (non-French) 9,856 18,767Canadian (French) 467 435U.S. 1,405 2,031Other 515 510Table 6 Mean Age of Adults Buried in the Necropolis, 1850-99 1850-54 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 M F M F M F M Fno. 109 113 481 376 488 453 522 469mean age 45.4 42.4 43.6 41.0 48.1 45.9 48.5 47.9 1870-4 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 M F M F M F M Fno. 791 672 659 587 538 506 492 459mean age 46.2 44.9 49.0 48.4 50.9 52.8 53.1 55.9 1890-4 1895-9 M F M Fno. 593 538 586 589mean age 55.0 53.7 56.2 55.9Table 7 Infant and Child Mortality in Toronto, 1850-99 1850-54 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4A. MALES no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%)Total Deaths 242 1,027 1,142 1,272 1,870Deaths under 1 89(37) 402(39) 445(39) 539(42) 820(44) yr.Deaths 1-5 yrs. 30(12) 86(8) 117(10) 106(8) 156(8)Deaths 6-15 yrs. 14(6) 58(6) 92(8) 75(6) 103(6)Total infant & 133(55) 546(53) 654(57) 720(57) 1,079(58) child deaths 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9 no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%)Total Deaths 1,673 1,211 1,009 1,101 1,045Deaths under 1 768(46) 521(43) 390(39) 347(32) 348(33) yr.Deaths 1-5 yrs. 159(10) 95(8) 67(7) 84(8) 64(6)Deaths 6-15 yrs. 87(5) 57(5) 60(6) 77(7) 47(4)Total infant & 1,014(61) 673(56) 517(51) 508(46) 459(44) child deaths 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4B. FEMALES no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%) no.(%)Total deaths 204 776 983 1,058 1,505Deaths under 1 62(30) 231(30) 334(34) 404(38) 617(41) yr.Deaths 1-5 yrs. 23(11) 98(13) 124(13) 105(10) 130(2)Deaths 6-15 yrs. 6(3) 71(9) 72(7) 80(8) 86(6)Total infant & 91(45) 400(52) 530(54) 589(56) 833(55) child deaths 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9Total deaths 1,488 1,082 894 973 975Deaths under 1 672(45) 444(41) 319(36) 302(31) 293(30) yr.Deaths 1-5 yrs. 145(10) 82(8) 63(7) 67(7) 53(5)Deaths 6-15 yrs. 84(6) 50(5) 53(6) 66(7) 40(4)Total infant & 901(61) 576(53) 435(49) 435(45) 386(40) child deathsTable 8 Deaths from Tuberculosis recorded in the Necropolis and Potter'sField Cemeteries, 1850-1899A. MALES 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4 1875-9no. 15 149 140 157 176 158% 6 15 12 12 9 9(total deaths) 242 1,027 1,142 1,272 1,870 1,673 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9 1850-99no. 94 57 31 59 1,036% 8 6 3 6 9(total deaths) 1,211 1,009 1,101 1,045 11,592B. FEMALES 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4 1875-9no. 5 123 128 144 160 149% 2 16 13 14 11 10(total deaths) 204 776 983 1,058 1,505 1,488 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9 1850-99no. 96 47 38 58 948% 9 5 4 6 10(total deaths) 1,082 894 973 975 9,938Table 9 Typhoid Mortality, 1850-99 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-0 1870-4 1875-9Male 0 2 6 13 59 29Female 0 5 5 8 35 29Total 0 7 11 11 94 58 1880-4 1885-0 1890-4 1895-9 TotalMale 24 14 32 15 194Female 24 14 29 11 160Total 48 28 61 26 354Table 10 Reported Cases of Typhoid, 1889-1893 Cases Deaths1889 273 --1890 907 --1891 855 --1892 426 1111893 476 801894 249 34Sources: Annual Report of the Local Board of Health for the Year 1894(Toronto: J.Y. Reid, 1895), p. 8; Annual Report ... for ... 1899, p. 24.Table 11 Mean Death at Age, 1850-99A. MALES 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4from age 0 27.5 23.2 23.2 24.4 22.7from age 6 39.6 40.3 42.3 44.1 42.2from age 16 44.3 43.6 48.1 48.5 46.2 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9from age 0 22.8 26.9 30.2 34.1 35.3from age 6 44.7 47.2 48.5 50.2 53.0from age 16 49.0 50.9 53.1 55.0 56.2B. FEMALES 1850-4 1855-9 1860-4 1865-9 1870-4from age 0 28.1 22.3 23.9 24.0 22.8from age 6 40.9 36.4 41.3 42.5 41.2from age 16 42.4 41.0 45.9 47.9 44.9 1875-9 1880-4 1885-9 1890-4 1895-9from age 0 23.3 28.2 33.3 33.4 37.5from age 6 43.9 49.1 51.4 48.9 53.1from age 16 48.4 52.8 55.9 53.7 55.9