_, although our mouths are full of legitimate promises for
the future."

Was Claude Bernard correct in this opinion as to the "empty hands?"
If scientific evidence is worth anything, it points to the appalling
conclusion that, _notwithstanding all the researches of physiology,
the chief forms of chronic disease exhibit to-day in England a greater
fatality than thirty years ago_. In the following table I have
indicated the average annual mortality, per million inhabitants, of
certain diseases, _first_, for the period of five years from 1850 to
1854, and _secondly_, for the period twenty-five years later, from
1875 to 1879. The authority is beyond question; the facts are
collected from the report to Parliament of the Registrar-general
of England:

_Average Annual Rate of Mortality in England,
from Causes of Death, per One Million Inhabitants._

----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
| During | During
NAME OF DISEASE. | Five Years, | Five Years,
| 1850-54. | 1875-79.
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
Gout, | 12 | 25
Aneurism, | 16 | 32
Diabetes, | 23 | 41
Insanity, | 29 | 57
Syphilis, | 37 | 86
Epilepsy, | 105 | 119
Bright's disease, | 32 | 182
Kidney disease, | 94 | 114
Brain disease, | 192 | 281
Liver disease, | 215 | 291
Heart disease, | 651 | 1,335
Cancer, | 302 | 492
Paralysis, | 440 | 501
Apoplexy, | 454 | 552
Tubercular diseases and diseases | |
of the Respiratory Organs, | 6,424 | 6,886
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------
Mortality from above diseases: | 9,026 | 10,994
----------------------------------+---------------+---------------

This is certainly a most st