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39
DEVELOPMENTAL DISEASE.
Sixty-three infants died because they were prematurely born;
seven others could not live as their lungs never properly expanded;
and twelve were so deformed as to incapacitate them from living.
Six of these had deformed hearts, five deformed spines, one had a
hare lip and cleft palate, another a contracted throat, and the
remaining one an imperforate rectum.
One hundred and seven old people died from natural decay.
DISEASES OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM.
Under this head 331 deaths were returned, more than eleven
per cent. of the total deaths—a mortality rate of two-and-a-half
per thousand population. Inflammatory diseases of the brain
oaused 71 deaths; and 120 persons died from chronic brain affections
such as softening and paralysis. One hundred and fourteen children
died from convulsions, 86 of these were infants.
The convulsive diseases of infants, which in addition to those
just mentioned include Hydrocephalus and Dentition, caused 151
deaths, a mortality of 29.27 calculated on the births, or twenty per
cent. of the total infantile deaths from all causes. See table IV.
RESPIRATORY ORGANS.
The deaths from this group of diseases, exclusive of Phthisis,
were 627, twenty-two per cent. of the total mortality, and
corresponded to a rate of 4.8 per thousand population. This is a
high mortality, and considerably above that of the previous year.
Table H separates this mortality into quarters, and shews the age,
distribution, and also the mean temperature and rainfall, conditions
which exert considerable influence upon the mortality from chest
diseases.