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65
Anœmia and Leucocythemia were the causes of 7 deaths
Glycosuria, Diabetes Mellitus, of 15 deaths.
The remaining diseases in this Class belong to the group
designated—
TUBERCULAR, and they are among the most important
with which sanitarians have to deal ; the degree to which
they prevail in a given district being regarded, in some sort,
as a test of the healthiness or otherwise of the population.
Generally hereditary, these diseases are nevertheless susceptible
of considerable amelioration under improved sanitary
arrangements. Scrofula is unknown in Hygieapolis! Pure
air and sunlight; efficient drainage, and its corollary a dry
subsoil ; good food, warm clothing, and temperance in all
things, are powerful antidotes to the bane of tubercle, which
is fostered by dirt and squalor, by cold and nakedness, by
vice and intemperance, by the want of the proper necessaries
of life, by overcrowding in ill-constructed, unventilated and
sewage-tainted houses ; and, in a word, by whatever is inimical
to the maintenance of a typical condition of health. The
cases that occur amongst the well-to-do classes are frequently
traceable to the influence of heredity : modern researches, however,
which have thrown great light on the origin of tubercle,
raise a presumption that Tuberculosis may be an infectious
disease—a specific fever of slow progress, with a veiled resemblance
to other specific eruptive fevers, and like them depending
for its origin on its own special " bacillus " : we are encouraged
to believe, therefore, that a remedy will ultimately
be found for this scourge of the human race. Tubercular
diseases were the registered causes of 307 deaths in 1893
(against 369, 343, and 293, in the preceding three years
respectively) : viz., 240 in the Town sub-district, and 67 in
Brompton ; 74 of the deaths being those of children under
five years of age. The numbers in the four quarters of the
year respectively, were 82, 71, 77, and 77 ; or 159 in the winter,
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