mes as many as white deaths,[34] deaths owing
to pneumonia are 89 per cent greater,[35] while deaths owing to
contagious causes, such as measles, scarlet fever, diphtheria,[36] are
but slightly greater or actually less than the white deaths in
proportion to population. In the city of Charleston, where mortality
statistics of negroes were compiled before the war, it has been shown
that from 1822 to 1848 the colored death-rate from consumption was a
trifle less than the white, but since 1865 the white mortality from that
cause has decreased 38 per cent, while the negro mortality has increased
70 per cent.[37] The death-rates from consumption in Charleston in 1900
were 189.8 for 100,000 whites and 647.7 for 100,000 negroes, an excess
of 241 per cent. The lowest negro death-rate reported from consumption
in cities is 378.5 for Memphis, but in that city the white death-rate
from the same cause is 169.9, a negro excess of 123 per cent.[38]

At a conference held at Atlanta University, Professor Harris, of Fisk
University, concluded:[39]--

"I have now covered the ground to which our excessive death-rate is
mainly due; namely, pulmonary diseases, especially consumption and
pneumonia, scrofula, venereal diseases, and infant mortality. If we
eliminate these diseases, our excessive death-rate will be a thing of
the past.... While I do not depreciate sanitary regulations and a
knowledge of hygienic laws, I am convinced that a _sine qua non_ of a
change for the better in the negro's physical condition is a higher
social morality.... From the health reports of all our large Southern
cities we learn that a considerable amount of our infant mortality is
due to inanition, infantile debility, and infantile marasmus. Now what
is the case in regard to these diseases? The fact is that they are not
diseases at all, but merely the names of symptoms due to enfeebled
constitutions and congenital diseases, inherited from parents suffering
from the effects of sexual immorality and debauchery.... It is true that
much of the moral laxity which exists among us to-day arose out of
slavery.... But to explain it is not to excuse it. It is no longer our
misfortune as it was before the war; it is our sin, the wages of which
is our excessive number of deaths.... The presence of tubercular and
scrofulous diseases, consumption, syphilis, and leprosy, has caused the
weaker nations of the earth to succumb before the rising tide of
Christian civilization....