Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 September 1884 — The Cost of Sickness. [ARTICLE]

The Cost of Sickness.

I think, then, that we can not escape from the reasons to believe that we lose in England and Wales every year, in consequence of sickness, 20,000,000 weeks’ work; or, say, as much work as 20,000,000 healthy peoplo would do in a week. The number is not easily grasped by the mind. It is equal to about onefortieth part of the work done in each year by the whole population between 15 and 65 years old.. Or, try to think of it in money. Bather more than half of it is lost by those whom the Kegistrar General names the domestic, the agricultural, and the industrial classes. These are more than 7,500,000 in number, and they lose about 11,000,000 weeks; say, for easy reckoning, at £1 a week; and here is a loss of £11,000,000 sterling from what should be the annual wealth of the country. For the other classes, who are estimated as losing the other 9,000,000 weeks’ work, it would be hard and unfair to make a guess in any known coin; for these include our great merchants, our judges and lawyer, and medical men, our statesmen and chief legislators; they include our poets and writers of all kinds, musicians, and philosophers; and our princes, who certainly do more for the wealth and welfare of the country than can be told in money.— Sir James Paget, in Popular Science Monthly, y