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13
Non-Zymotic Diseases.—As in the year preceding,
diseases of the organs of respiration (class 5) were by
far the most numerous of all the causes of death. They
were 850 in number, and 124 above the average, and
formed no less than 22 per cent, of the total mortality.
This excess, looking to the circumstance that it was principally
borne by young children, was very probably due to
the remote effects of the prevailing epidemics Measles and
Whooping-cough. The Tubercular Class (class 2), which
includes Scrofula and Consumption, caused 521 deaths,
which were 139 less than the average. The deaths from
diseases of the Brain a,nd Nerves (class 3) numbered
539, or 14 per cent, (nearly) of all deaths, and were 23
below the average; but as this class contains the whole
mortality of the County Lunatic Asylum, the inmates
of which are mostly derived from without the district,
any calculation based on the relative position held by it
in the causation of the mortality would be valueless.
Deaths from Diseases of the Heart (class 4), as in the
year preceding, were more numerous than usual; they
numbered 251, or 25 above the average. From Premature
Birth, &.c. (class 11), the deaths which had greatly
increased in the previous year, were 5 below the average.
Deaths from Diseases of the Digestive Organs (class 6)
shewed an increase of 30 above the average; those from
Diseases of the Urinary Organs (class 7) an increase of
22 above the average, and those from Dropsy, Cancer,
and others of Uncertain Seat, a similar increase of 13.
The variations of fatality in these and the remaining
classes as well as in the several diseases of the Zymotic
Class, may be more conveniently compared in the following
table, which shows the increase or decrease in the
number of deaths from each class of disease during the
past year in relation to its decennial average corrected
for increase of population.