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together, contribute 16 per centum, or one-sixth to the whole mortality
Although inflammation of the lungs, or one of the forms of lung-disease
registered under the terms, pneumonia and bronchitis, owe, in the
majority of cases, their immediate origin to the influence of cold, yet
many causes more or less remote, concur in their production. These
causes it is not always possible to unravel. Bronchitis especially is a
name given to a condition, in which various, perhaps, complex diseases
terminate. Frequently this condition is only a mode of dying, not strictly
an essential disease, or cause of death. Both bronchitis and pneumonia
also have their sanitary aspect,—one more important, I believe—than is
commonly suspected. In many instances, these are not simply local
disorders, that is, not mere lung-inflammations, but really the consequences
of some morbid poison circulating throughout the system.
Pneumonia and bronchitis may be as truly the result of epidemic influences
as fever or scarlatina, or diarrhoea,. If these names, therefore,
obtain an excessive prominence in mortality-tables, attention must be
directed to the sanitary conditions of the locality. Pneumonia and bronchitis
were considerably less fatal in 1861 than in 1860. The difference is
not perhaps entirely explained by the prevalence of greater mildness of
temperature. Brain- diseases occupy the next place. If we class together
the three heads, brain-disease, apoplexy, and convulsions, we get a sum
of 403 deaths. This is equal to 12 per centum of the gross-mortality.
The term "Convulsions" is one of the most ambiguous in the Register.
It covers a vast amount of gratuitous assumption; convulsions frequently
occur as the last symptom of other diseases; it is one of those terms
used by uninformed persons under the assumed necessity for giving some
name to a fatal disease. It constitutes one of the principal fallacies of
the Registration-Returns. A large proportion of infant deaths which
passed without medical observation, are registered under this convenient
denomination. Very similar remarks will apply to the next accepted
causes of death: Atrophy, and Debility. These are vague terms, employed
for the most part for the want of precise knowledge. Under
these heads, 151 deaths almost entirely of infants and aged persons, are
registered. In the next place stands Diarrhoea, which this year produced
only a moderate mortality. 149 deaths are ascribed to this cause. Old
Age is ascribed as the cause of death in 130 cases. Amongst these,
were several instances of remarkable longevity. Heart Diseases come