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97
been caused by diseases and accidents associated with parturition
(19) were equal to 5 per 1,000 live births, against 4.0, 5.8, and
7.6 per 1,000 in 1885-6-7 respectively.
Class 2.—Parasitic Diseases
Include Thrush and other Vegetable Parasitic Diseases, two
deaths; and "Worms, Hydatids, and other Animal Parasitic
Diseases," no death.
Class III.—Dietetic Diseases
Were the causes of 17 deaths, 14 of them in the Town subdistrict.
To Want of breast milk and Starvation 3 deaths were
classified, and to Scurvy none. Delirium tremens was the cause of
deaths, against 2, 10 and 4 in 1885-6-7: Chronic alcoholism
of ten deaths, against 4, 10 and 9. Of the 14 deaths in 1888,11
were registered in the Town sub-district. It is scarcely necessary,
perhaps, to remark that, if all the deaths due, directly or
indirectly, to the immoderate use of intoxicating liquors could
be ascertained, "Alcoholism" would occupy a more prominent
position in the "Bills of Mortality but many deaths due to
the abuse of alcohol get certified, and therefore are classified, to
visceral and degenerative diseases, caused or aggravated by
"drink." Man's ingenuity in the discovery of alcohol, it may
be truly said, is accountable for a large share of the misery of
his race. "The drink" is a fruitful parent of vice and crime, as
well as being the cause of much bodily sickness, mental trouble,
moral degradation, ruin, and many premature deaths: it fills our
prisons and workhouses, our asylums and hospitals, our cemeteries,
and, though happily to a decreasing extent, our National
Exchequer !
Class 4.—Constitutional Diseases.
This important Class comprises the causes of 569 deaths
(=20 per cent, of total deaths), including 123 of children
under the age of five years; 443 of the deaths were registered
in the Town sub-district, and 126 in Brompton.
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