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of the patient, and the small size of the parts affected,
often make a satisfactory examination difficult.
The developmental diseases denote that the subjects
of them have been born too early (premature birth), or
have been imperfectly formed when born (cyanosis,
spina bifida, and other malformations), or have been
badly nourished after birth (atrophy). As might be
expected, the deaths from these causes greatly preponderate
during the first year of life.
It will be observed, that not only is the mortality
greatest during the first year of life, but that it is
greatest during the first month, and rapidly declines
month by month; and as, in every month, the deaths of
male children are more numerous than those of female,
at the end of the first year the disparity in the number
of boys and girls, to which reference has been made,
is greatly reduced.
One is tempted to ask whether the provision of so
much life, such a prodigality of being to be followed so
soon by an almost Pharaoh-like sacrifice of it, is necessary
to the multiplication of the race. It is to be observed,
that if we follow the stream of embryonic life upwards,
we are confronted month by month with an increasing
apparent waste, until we arrive at the commingling of
its sources, and the wholesale destruction of those
elements of physical being which have been provided
to secure the continuation of the species. In the
vegetable world, we see the same law apparently
at work, in the wealth of blossom which is frequently
out of all proportion to the amount of fruit. The
promise of the spring is not always redeemed when