we extract
from the last census report the following statistics, showing the
average number of deaths from consumption in the following States to be

One in 254 in Massachusetts,
One in 473 in New York,
One in 757 in Virginia,
One in 1139 in Minnesota.

This speaks for the climate more of praise than it is possible for any
scientific speculation to do, since it is the practical and final test
as well as the most satisfactory.

Undoubtedly, the relative disproportion would be very much greater if
the number of deaths of those who go from other States, after it is too
late for them to receive any benefit, could be eliminated from the
actual number that die from among the inhabitants themselves. The
question may arise right here among some of the more skeptical, how it
is that any of the population are afflicted with this disease, if the
climate is such an enemy to it? We answer--that full half of the deaths
reported from phthisis are of those who come too late--as before
stated--and a fourth of the whole number we know to be from among those
who are not natives, but yet are of the _regular_ inhabitants, whose
lives have been prolonged here, and who from improper exposure or
neglect of wholesome rules (which they at first rigidly followed, but
growing better, neglected to maintain), have paid the penalty. Not over
one-third of the entire list of inhabitants of the State, up to the
present time, are natives; hence deaths from consumption among the
remaining two-thirds cannot be attributed, by any fair inference, to the
direct influence of the climate. This still leaves a fourth of the whole
number of deaths from this scourge to fall on those who "are to the
manner born." This is a very trifling percentage, and might be waived as
not being a fraction sufficiently important to merit much attention; but
we may frankly admit that these cases appear here, and are the result of
a want of a _perfect_ equability in the climate, and to this extent it
must be held answerable. We might, however, conclude that even this
final fraction could be accounted for in the hereditary taint, but we
forbear, as we likewise do to claim entire exemption here from this
complaint. No climate, perhaps, in any portion of the whole habitable
earth, could be found to be utterly exempt. Then, too, consumption is to
general debility a natural sequence, almost as much as flame is to
powder when exploded; and as there are likely in all climates,