London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Kensington 1888

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Kensington]

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100
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 63
(of which 44 occurred under five years of age), including 11
registered in the Brompton sub-district. Tabes Mesenterica,
popularly known as "consumption of the bowels," was the cause
of 27 deaths, including two only in Brompton; all of them
under five years of age, and 15 under one year. Tubercular
Meningitis and Hydrocephalus (water on the brain) were the
causes of 51 deaths, 10 of them in Brompton, and 45 under five
years of age. Phthisis, popularly known as "decline," or
"consumption," was the cause of 259 deaths; one under five
years of age, eight between 5 and 15 years, and 239 between 15
and 65; viz., 26, 72, 70, 45, and 26 in the five decades consecutively;
eleven deaths were registered at ages over 65. The
quarterly numbers were 64, 66, 60, and 69. Of the total 202
belong to the Town sub-district, and 57 to Brompton. The
deaths from tubercular diseases were, as usual, disproportionately
more numerous in the Town sub-district than in
Brompton, 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 premature birth, atrophy, debility, convulsions,
&c., were primarily due to the scrofulous taint. In
numerous instances some other disease, e.g., of the lungs, as
bronchitis, pneumonia, &c., was 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 classi6ed to that
heading, it being assumed that the tubercular diathesis was
underlying the other disease, and was in fact the primary cause
of death.