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101
able for 1,292 deaths, or 48 per cent. of the total number of
deaths from all causes: 1,022 of the deaths wore registered in
the Town sub-district, and 270 in Brompton; 446 were of
children under five years of age.
1. Nervous System.—Diseases of the nervous system
were the registered causes of 260 deaths (as against 305 in
1881), viz., 210 in the Town sub-district, and 50 in Brompton:
92 under five years of age. The quarterly numbers were 63, 68,
62 and 67. Inflammation of the brain or membranes was
the cause of 9 deaths; Insanity and General Paralysis of the
insane of 4 ; Epilepsy of 12; Disease of spinal cord, paraplegia,
and paralysis agitans of 11, and Other diseases of nervous system
of 21. The principal diseases are apoplexy, softening of brain,
hemiplegia, and brain paralysis, which account for 119 deaths
(28 in Brompton), of which one only occurred under the age
of five years : 106 of these deaths occurred at ages above 45.
Convulsions was the cause of 77 deaths (all but one under five
years of age, and 14 only in Brompton), irrespective of the
twelve deaths already referred to epilepsy. Convulsions as a
cause of death is frequently associated, in medical certificates,
with definite diseases, and with " teething," the convulsions
being a symptom only ; such deaths are classified to the primary
diseases named, or to dentition, as the case may be. Laryngismus
stridulus (spasm of the glottis), included in the new classification
with diseases of the nervous system, was the registered
cause of 7 deaths, all under five years of age ; but as the children
were generally " 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 convulsions, when the children have been " found dead in bed."
The cause of death in such cases—whether spasm of the glottis