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Tubercular, and they are amongst the most important
with which sanitarians have to deal; the degree to which they
prevail in a given district being regarded, in some sort, as a
test of the healthiness or otherwise of the population.
General]}- hereditary, these diseases are nevertheless susceptible
of considerable amelioration under improved sanitary arrangements.
Scrofula is unknown in Hygieapolis! Pure air and
sunlight, efficient drainage and its corollary, a dry subsoil;
good food, warm clothing, and temperance in all things, are
powerful antidotes to the bane of tubercle, which is fostered by
dirt and squalor, by cold and nakedness, by vice and intemperance,
by the want of the proper necessaries of life, by over-crowding
in ill-constructed, unventilated and sewage-tainted houses, and,
in a word, by whatever is inimical to the maintenance of a
typical condition of health. The cases that occur amongst the
well-to-do classes are frequently traceable to the influence of
heredity: modern researches, however, which have thrown
great light on the origin of tubercle, raise a presumption that
Tuberculosis may be an infectious disease—a specific fever of
slow progress with a veiled resemblance to other specific
eruptive fevers, and like them depending for its origin on its
own specific "bacillus " : we are encouraged to hope, therefore,
that a remedy may ultimately be found for this great scourge
of the human race. Tubercular diseases were the registered
cause of 320 deaths (against 440, 393 and 400 in 1886-7-8),
viz., 257 in the Town sub-district, and 63 in Brompton ; 76 of
the deaths being of children under five years of age. The
numbers in the four quarters of the year respectively were
75, 80, 93 and 72: 147 in the winter and 173 in the
summer quarters. In a few instances Phthisis was returned
as thecause 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 III., with those
certified from "Other forms of Tuberculosis, Scrofula," the
total being 38 (of which 22 occurred under five years of age)