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quarterly numbers being 40, 41, 36 and 41. One hundred and
fifty of the deaths were classified to "Heart Disease, etc."
Pericarditis and Aneurism were returned as the causes of 1 and 7
deaths respectively. Twenty-three of the deaths occurred at ages
under 35 (not one under five years), 25 between 35 and 45 : and 31,
27, 34, and 17 in the four next ascending decades, and one death
above 85 years of age.
Order 3. Respiratory Organs.—The deaths from the diseases
of the chest (excluding phthisis) were 518, or 19 per cent. of
total deaths—428 in the Town sub-district, and 90 in Bromptdn.
The quarterly numbers were 180, 137, 50 and 151, or 331 in the
first and fourth or colder quarters, and 187 in the second and third
or warmer quarters. The deaths under five years of age were 238,
about 46 per cent., and at 55 and upwards, 175 or nearly 34
per cent., of the total number. These diseases are thus seen to be
most fatal at the extremes of life: but the extent of the mortality
varies considerably in different years, depending on temperature,
and on the character, generally, of the season, the diseases being far
more prevalent in cold than in mild winters, and most fatal when
with cold, fog, especially "London" fog, is associated. The
diseases in this order include Laryngitis, 11; Pleurisy, 9;
Asthma, 7; "Lung Disease, etc.," 34; Bronchitis, 353; and
Pneumonia, 99. The two latter diseases therefore, and they
often occur together, were accountable for 452 deaths (including
217 under five years), and of this number 74, or about one-sixth
only, occurred in Brompton. There were five deaths registered
from spasm of the glottis, which I have included in this order
for want of a better place, but as the deaths were of infants
"found dead in bed," it is probable that the title has little more
meaning than "want of breath" as a cause of death; and
indeed want of breath is the cause of death when death results
from spasm of the glottis. In the absence of other apparent
cause of death, the pre-existence of spasm of the glottis, may have
been inferred, but it is quite possible, to say the least of it, that
some of the children may have been "overlaid," i.e, suffocated—
a remark that applies equally to deaths attributed to compulsions,
when the children have been "found dead in bed." The cause of
death in such cases—whether spasm of the glottis or convulsions