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79
[1902

CONSTITUTIONAL DISEASES.
This group of diseases, which includes among others Rheumatism and
Rheumatic Fever, Gout, Rickets, Cancer, Tabes Mesenterica, Tubercular
Meningitis, Phthisis, Scrofula, Purpura, Anaemia and allied ailments and
Diabetes, caused 1,097 deaths, or 20.5 per cent. of the total deaths registered
during the year. Of these 1,097 deaths no less than 326 were due to Cancer,
and 672 to Tubercular Diseases.
The return (vide Table LXVII.) is 21 above the corrected average number
of deaths registered from these diseases during the preceding nine years.
Rheumatism showed an increase of 4 deaths, Gout 3, Rickets 1, Cancer 50,
Scrofula 28 and Diabetes 7. On the other hand Tabes Mesenterica, Tubercular
Meningitis, and, most gratifying of all, Phthisis, were less by 24, 7, and
38 respectively, while Ansemia decreased by 3.
Cancer or Malignant Disease.—It is very unsatisfactory to find
that Cancer caused 53 deaths more than the corrected average of the
preceding ten years, and that the return of 326 is the highest hitherto recorded
in Islington. The previous highest figures were 304 in 1897, and 303 in 1900.
These 326 deaths, which included 133 males and 193 females, represent 61
per cent. of the deaths registered from all causes in the borough, while they
almost equal the combined mortality from the three most fatal Zymotic
diseases, Measles, Diphtheria and Whooping Cough. Unlike these diseases,
however, which, as a rule, attack only the young, Cancer seizes, and that in
a mysterious manner, on the adults and the aged.