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77
efficient drainage and its corollary a dry soil; good food, warm
clothing, and temperance in all things, are powerful antidotes to the
bane of tubercle, which is fostered by the opposites—by filth and
squalor, by cold and nakedness, by vice and intemperance, by the
want of the proper necessaries of life, by overcrowding in illconstructed,
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 in the well-to-do classes of
society are usually traceable to the influence of heredity. The
diseases in this order were the registered causes of 467 deaths, viz.,
383 in the Town sub-district, and 84 in Brompton; 165 of the
deaths being of children under 5 years of age. The numbers in
the four quarters respectively, were 130,135,116 and 86:—216 in
the winter, and 251 in the summer quarters. It is not uncommon
to have "phthisis " returned as the cause of death in the earliest
infancy, a period at which tubercular disease usually manifests its
presence in other organs than the lungs. Such cases have been
classified to scrofula and tuberculosis, the deaths from which were
42; 84 in the Town district, and 8 in Brompton, 26 of them
having occurred under five years of age. Tabes mesenterica
popularly known as "consumption of the bowels," was the cause of
64 deaths, 3 of them in Brompton, and all but three of children under
five years of age. Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), and
Tubercular meningitis were the causes of 89 deaths, (17 in
Brompton) 72 of them of children under five. Phthisis, the form of
the disease known as "decline" or "consumption," was the cause
of 272 deaths, irrespective of 99 deaths of non-parishioners at the
Consumption Hospital, dealt with later on. Of the 272 deaths,
216 occurred in the Town sub-district, and 56 in Brompton. The
quarterly numbers of deaths were 79, 76, 68, and 49 respectively.
Six of the deaths occurred under five years of age, 9 between 5 and
15; 47 between 15 and 25; 69 between 25 and 35; 67 between
35 and 45; 48 between 45 and 55; 21 between 55 and 65; and
5 between 65 and 75. The deaths from tubercular diseases were
disproportionately numerous in the Town sub-district, scarcely
more than a fifth of the whole number having occurred in
Brompton, the population of which is more than a fourth of that of
the parish generally. This fact may be explained by the relatively
smaller number of children and of the poor in Brompton. It is