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Class III.—Dietetic Diseases
Were the causes of 18 deaths, 16 of them in the Town subdistrict.
To Want of Breast Milk, Starvation, 4 deaths of
infants under one year were classified; to Scurvy, none. Delirium
Tremens was the cause of 6 deaths, against 10, 4 and 4 in
1886-7-8; Chronic Alcoholism of 7 deaths, against 10, 9
and 10. Of the 13 deaths from "drink" in 1»89, 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 part 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 of many premature deaths :
it fills our prisons and workhouses, our asylums and hospitals
our cemeteries, and our National Exchequer !
Class IV..—Constitutional Diseases.
This important Class comprises the causes of 515 deaths
(=21'3 per cent, of total deaths), including 79 of children
under the age of five years : 394 of the deaths were registered
in the Town sub district, and 121 in Brompton.
Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatism of the Heart caused 20
deaths, 6 of them in the Brompton sub-district; Rheumatism,
4 deaths. In fatal cases of rheumatic fever, the immediate
cause of death, not infrequently, is disease of the heart arising
in the course of the malady; and of the deaths certified from
heart disease at later periods of life, not a few might properly