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62
VOILENT DEATHS.— Continued.
Burn 1
Scalds 2
Poison 6
Suffocation 16
Neglect at birth 2
"Wilful murder" 2
53
Suicide was effected by poison in five instances, and by gunshot and
drowning in one each. One "wilful murder" was by "criminal
abortion," and one by exposure of a newly-born infant.
Among the cases described as "sudden," "found dead," &c., there
were, as usual, many of persons who had died from ordinary, easily
recognizable and curable visceral diseases; and it is impossible to resist
the conviction that there had been gross and culpable neglect on somebody's
part in the failure to obtain medical assistance for the deceased—
seeing that the illnesses must have extended over many days, and been
attended with obvious symptoms of a more or less serious and painful
nature; for there would have been no occasion for inquests had medical
certificates of the cause of death been forthcoming. The mere return of
the cause of death by a jury seems to me scarcely to meet the requirements
of justice, considering that the death of any person—but particularly
of one very young or very aged—from a disease like
pneumonia or bronchitis, when there has been no medical treatment,
raises a presumption of neglect which would justify a verdict of
"manslaughter," at least as reasonably as in the case of the "peculiar
people," who, whilst treating their sick with care in other respects,
refuse, on mistaken conscientious grounds, to employ medical assistance.
METEOROLOGY.
The mean temperature of the air at Greenwich in 1879 was 460'2
Fahr,, or 3°'l below the average of forty years, 1840—79. The
averages of the four quarters respectively were 37o.2, 49o.3, 580.2,
and 40°.7. The highest reading by day (800.6) was taken in the
week ending August 2nd, and the lowest reading by night (130.7) in
the week ending December 13. The hottest week in the year was