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encouraged to hope, therefore, that a remedy may ultimately be
found for this great scourge of the human race. Tubercular
diseases were the registered causes of 393 deaths (against 440
in 1885), viz., 317 in the Town sub-district, and 76 in Brompton;
121 of the deaths being of children under 5 years of
age. The numbers in the four quarters of the year respectively,
were 108,86 100, and 105: 213 in the winter and 186 in the
summer quarters. In a few instances phthisis was returned
as the cause of death in 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., brain, bowels, etc. Such
deaths have been classified, in Table 3, with those certified from
"other forms of tuberculosis, scrofula," the total being 42 (of
which 22 occurred under 5 years of age), including 5 registered
in the Brompton sub-district. Tabes Mesenterica, popularly
known as "consumption of the bowels," was the cause of 48
deaths; including five only in Brompton; 47 of them under
five years of age, and 32 under one year. Tubercular Meningitis
and Hydrocephalus (water on the brain), were the causes of 63
deaths, 16 of them in Brompton, and 51 under five years of age.
Phthisis, popularly known as "decline," or "consumption,"
was the cause of 240 deaths; 9 of them between 5 and 15 years
of age, and 215 between 15 and 65; viz., 36, 53, 54, 45, and
27, in the five decades consecutively; fifteen deaths were registered
at ages over 65. The quarterly numbers were 64, 53, 59,
and 64. Of the total, 190 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;
less than a fifth of them 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 probable that the deaths ascribed to tubercular diseases
do not comprise all of the deaths originating in the tubercular
diathesis, and that many deaths of children classified to