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cause of death in the earliest infancy, a period of life at which the
tubercular diathesis commonly manifests itself in other parts of
the body than the lungs, e.g., the brain and bowels. Such deaths
have been classified in Table 3, with those certified from
tuberculosis and other forms of scrofula, the total being 47, (of
which 30 occurred under five years of age), including 8 registered in
the Brompton sub-district. Tabes Mesenterica, popularly known
as "consumption of the bowels," was the cause of 67 deaths, 2 of
them only in Brompton; 64 under five years of age, and 47
under one year. Tubercular Meningitis and Hydrocephalus,
(water on the brain), were the causes of 51 deaths, 10 of them in
Brompton, and 43 under five years of age. Phthisis, popularly
known as "decline," or "consumption," was the cause of 248
deaths, 16 of them between 5 and 15 years of age; and 228
between 15 and 65, viz., 34, 65, 70, 40, and 19, in the five
decades respectively: four deaths were registered at ages over 65.
The quarterly numbers were 60, 61, 52 and 75 ; of the total, 198
belong to the Town sub-district and 50 to Brompton. The deaths
from tubercular diseases were, as usual, but not to the customary
extent, disproportionately more numerous in the Town sub-district
than in Brompton, a fifth of them only having occurred in Brompton,
which contains more than a fourth of the population, a fact
which may be explained, in part, by the relatively small proportion
of children, and of the poorest classes, in this sub-district. It is
more than probable that the deaths ascribed to these causes do
not comprise all the deaths really due to diseases indicating the
tubercular diathesis, and that many deaths of young children
classified to such causes as premature birth, atrophy, debility,
convulsions, &c., were primarily due to the scrofulous taint. In
many instances some other disease, e.g., of the lungs, as bronchitis,
pneumonia, &c., is associated with phthisis in medical
certificates of the cause of death, but all such associated diseases
have been disregarded in the preparation of Table 3, for when
phthisis was returned the death is classified to that heading, it being
assumed that the tubercular diathesis was underlying the other
disease, and was in fact the primary cause of death.