View report page

III-defined Causes.—These amounted to 7.3 per cent. The
late Registrar-General considered "Atrophy and Debility"
a sufficiently specified cause of death. The present Registrar-General
does not. He thinks that a little more care
not perhaps in the matter of diagnosis but in the writing
of medical certificates would enable him to classify many of
the deaths which are attributed to this cause, under some
distinct and more appropriate head to which they properly
belong, such as premature birth, want of breast milk, tabes
mesenterica, phthisis, congenital syphilis, rickets, or the
diseases of which the wasting or cachexia is a direct consequence.
In cases of "tumour" and "abscess" there can
be no difficulty and but little trouble in specifying the organ
or part which is affected.
Violence.—The deaths registered as due to violence numbered
35, or 1.8 per cent. Under the head of accident or
negligence, 10 deaths were assigned to fractures and contusions,
3 to burns and scalds, 13 to asphyxia, 5 to drowning,
and 1 to acute lead poisoning. A little boy, aged 4 years,
was knocked down and run over by a two-horse van
accidentally in the public street. Two children were burnt
through accidents with benzoline spirit lamps. A girl, aged
10 years, died from concussion of the brain caused by the
throwing of a stone. A child, aged one year, was suffocated
by the impaction of a piece of potato in the throat. Another
child of the same age was drowned by falling into a
pail of water. A third child of the like age died from scalds
caused by pulling down a cup of hot tea. There were three
cases of suicide—all males—two by cut throat and one by
strangulation.
Inquests were held in 71 cases, or 3.7 per cent. In
London the inquest cases were 6.8 per cent, of the total
deaths. Thirty-five deaths were attributed to violence and
36 to natural causes. The latter included brain diseases 10,
pulmonary diseases 8, heart diseases 8, and scarlet fever 1.
An inquest was held on a man, aged 21 years, in which the
verdict was "blood poisoning, inoculated by washing and
cleaning foreign hides."
Uncertified Deaths numbered 68, or 3.55 per cent. In
London these deaths were 1.19 per cent, of all deaths
registered; 37 were children under 1 year of age, 7 were