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is fostered by dirt and squalor, by cold and nakedness, by
vice and intemperance, by the want of the proper necessaries
of life, by overcrowding in ill-constructed, unventilated and
sewage-tainted houses ; and, in a word, by whatevtr 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 special "bacillus " : we are encouraged
to hope, therefore, that a remedy may ultimately
be found for this scourge of the human race. Tubercular
diseases were the registered causes of 343 deaths (against
400, 320, and 369 respectively, in 1888-89-90 : viz., 279 in the
Town sub-district, and 64 in Brompton; 83 of the deaths
being those of children under five years of age. The numbers
in the four quarters of the year respectively were 84, 82, 90, 87;
or 171 in the winter, and 172 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, &c. Such deaths have been classified
in Table III., with those certified from " Other forms of
Tuberculosis, Scrofula," the total being 33 (of which 18 occurred
under five years of age), including 7 registered in the
Brompton sub-district. Tabes Mesenterica, popularly known
as "consumption of the bowels," was the cause of 39 deaths,
including 4 in Brompton, all of them save three, under five
years of age, and 30 under one year. Tubercular Meningitis
and Hydrocephalus (water on the brain) were the causes of 34
deaths, 8 of them in Brompton, and 29 under five years o f
age Phthisis, popularly known as "decline"or "consumption,"
was the cause of 237 deaths: 7 between
five and fifteen years of age, and 223 between fifteen