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OTHER DISEASES OF THE ZYMOTIC CLASS (Class I.).
Order 5 (Venereal Diseases) includes Syphilis, Gonorrhoea, and Stricture of the Urethra.
Syphilis was the registered cause of 19 deaths, against 10, 17, and 19, in the three preceding years
respectively. All of the deaths occurred in the Town sub-district, and 13 of them were of
children under one year of age. If the truth were known, it would probably appear that this
Protean malady was accountable, directly or indirectly, for many deaths in excess of the record.
There were two deaths from Stricture of the Urethra.
Order 6 (Septic Diseases) comprises Erysipelas, Pyaemia, Septicœmia, and Puerperal Fever:
the total deaths registered were 13, as compared with 12, 17, and 14, in the three preceding years
respectively. Erysipelas was the cause of 6 deaths,* all of them in the Town sub-district, as
compared with 7, 8, and 9, in the three preceding years. There were 5 deaths from Pyœmia or
Septiœmia.
Puerperal Fever was the registered cause of 2 deaths, in the Town sub-district, of women
between 25 and 45 years of age as compared with 5, 5, and 5, in the three preceding years respectively.
In addition to these 2 deaths, other 9 deaths (all but one of them in the Town subdistrict),
were registered as having occurred in childbed; compared with (6, 4, and 19, in the
three preceding years respectively. The deaths registered as having been caused by diseases and
accidents associated with parturition (11 in all) were equal to 3.1 per 1,000 live births, against
3.0, 2.5, and 6.7, per 1,000 in the three preceding years respectively. The notifications of puerperal
fever were 10 in number. Bearing in mind the disastrous series of cases of this disease on which I
reported in 1883, when a verdict of manslaughter was returned by a coroner's jury against a
midwife, under circumstances set out in the fourth and sixth reports for that year, I have since
made it my duty to warn nurses, and other women concerned with these painful cases, of the
responsibility they incur by attending parturient women until after a period of three or four weeks,
and disinfection of their persons, clothing, &c. This course was adopted in respect of the cases
notified in 1901 with satisfactory results, there having been no spread of the disease.
Class III.—Dietetic Diseases.
The deaths from the diseases in this class were 18: 16 of them in the Town sub-district.
Delirium Tremens was the cause of 4 deaths, as compared with 6, 2, and 5, in the three preceding
years respectively; Chronic Alcoholism of 12 deaths, against 18, 17, and 14. It is scarcely
necessary, perhaps, to remark that if all the deaths due, directly or indirectly, to the immoderate
use of intoxicating liquors were correctly certified, alcoholism would occupy a more prominent
position in the bills of mortality; but many deaths due to the misuse of alcohol get certified, and
are necessarily classified, to visceral and degenerative diseases caused or aggravated by drink.
Class IV.—Constitutional Diseases.
This important class comprises the causes of 551 deaths (20.8 per cent, of total deaths),
including 61 of children under the age of five years: 453 of the deaths were registered in the
Town sub-district, and 98 in Brompton.
Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatism of the Heart caused 10 deaths, 7 of them in the Town
sub-district ; Rheumatism 1. Gout was the cause of 5 deaths, and Rickets of 8, all of them in the
Town sub-district.
Cancer, Malignant Disease, was accountable for 185 deaths; 143 in the Town sub-district
and 42 in Brompton. Cancer would appear to be on the increase in the country generally:
possibly, however, some portion of the apparent increase in the number of deaths classified to this
cause may be due to greater accuracy in diagnosis. The deaths in Kensington in the ten
preceding years, were 127, 129, 140, 143, 136, 173, 168, 193, 169, and 152 respectively. Deaths
from malignant disease are usually more numerous proportionately to population, in the Brompton
sub-district than in the relatively poorer Town sub-district, cancer being quite as prevalent,
probably even more prevalent, amongst well-to-do people, than in the poorer classes. The parts
of the body most commonly affected are the viscera or internal organs; in women, the uterus
and the breast; the disease, moreover, being for the most part one of later life. Thus, 164 of the
deaths took place at ages above forty-five, and 15 between thirty-five and forty-five years.
Tubercular Diseases were the registered causes of 314 deaths, as compared with 333, 319,
and 306, in the three preceding years respectively ; viz., 268 in the Town sub-district, and 46 in
Brompton: 53 of the deaths were of children under five years of age. In a few instances Phthisis
was returned as the cause of death in infancy, a period of life at which the tubercular diathesis
commonly manifests itself in other parts of the body than the lungs; e.g., the brain, bowels, &c.
Such deaths have been classified with those ascribed to " Other forms of Tuberculosis," the total
* The notifications of erysipelas were 169, some of the cases being of traumatic origin, and others unimportant in
character, such as the framers of the Act could scarcely have intended to be notified.