The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1876-11-11 00:00:00

'HE DISEASES THAT KILL.

The 43inneral eho ws in the report which he has
issued year 1874, that two-thirds of the deaths in Eng-
land occurred from one or other of 15 causes :

Bronchitis heads the lists; it caused 53,022 deaths, a
larger number than in any year included in a table
extending over the preceding 15 years.
. _
Next comes phthises, or consumption, which cut
short 49,379 lives, a smaller number than in almost any
of the preceding 15 years.
Atrophy and debility account for 30,995 deaths, chiefly
of young children.
Old age, which should be highest on the list of causes
of death, is fourth, and to it 28,604 deaths are referred;
the list includes 12,495 men and 16,109 women, all over
65 years old, and some centenarians.
Heart disease, which continues to increase, accounts
for 28,513 deaths; and convulsions caused 27,139,
almost all of them deaths of children.
Pneumonia, more fatal than for some few years,
occasioned 25,927 deaths.
Eighth on the list stands scarlet fever, to which as
- as 24,922 deaths are attributed; an epidemic of
fever had set in, and this number is nearly double
either of the two next preceding years.
.hcea' which is more fatal than it was 20 years
121,204 deaths, more than 18,000 of them
_ among children under five years of age. Dr.
W.' Fol'r thinks it not improbable that the mixture of
alfrr in water tends to spread this disease among
'6lll

many 2b.
scarlat ft
hat of:
Diarr
canna
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ilger
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and paralysis, both of them on the increase
ears. caused 12,848 and 12,572 deaths respec-
-1874 ; but diseases of the aervous system did
. so great an increase in tkst year as diseases
organs of circulation. .1"
lee was more fat,l than on the average; it was
‘,.of 12,255 deaths.
, one of the longest and most painful diseases
mankind are suhjeot, is growing more fatal,
nany as 11,011. deaths were ascribed to it in
imprising 3,470 males and 7,541 females. Cancer
;he young; most of the deaths occur at ages
—el it is notioeable in the year's returns that
. age
,hose e."

to whi,
abcl as
1874, c
Spares
above ,

under
than t'

Iteied

age the deatks of males Were more numerous
of females but at ages over 45 there were

regis 2,991 deaths of males and no less than 7,114
deaths bf females. Dr. Farr's comment is that "forces
which been 4 expended in building up normal or-
Oanizalunsivire then diyerted towards heterologous
struct es." ° '• '0 •
.: Last on the lint nf the 16 chief foes of life come
premat re birth, which in 1874 accounted for 10,527
deaths Aid Whooping-cough 10,362 deaths. The rate
of maisility in the sear from all causes was not above
the sirefrage, but it was higher than that of the pre-
ceding o'ear; nearly half the access was attributable to
ecorletiever and measles, while atmospheric and other
agehcies raised the deaths from many'caursos.
. . .
In wiewing the causes of death, Dr. Farr remarks
that ttbercular;diseases show signs of subsidence.
Typhus and sinhple continued fever are noticed as
havingtshown a tendency to decline since three forms
of, fever have been. ditstinguithed in the return, but
enteric fever *showed no symptom of decline. Gout
still ho de its own. The denth-rate from alcholism was
higher in 1874019:nit had been for some years. .
Hydrophofria, notwithstanding police regulations, is
twice af fatal SS it was 20 Nears ago; there were 61
deaths rpm.this cause in 1874.
The +iolent deaths were 17,920, the highest number
yet registered. Nearly all were from accident or negli-
gence, but the executions reached the unusual number
of 18, and there were 1,592 suicides.
There were 1,249 persons killed on railways in the
year in( some way or other. The year's returns show
1,313 persons killed by horie 'conveyances,. tram-cars
killed 62, omnibuses only 55 persons. By cabs 61
persona were killed, and by carrfages'B2, and this limita-
tion ( f the numbers is noted voimpl)iiik'greiti skill on
the part of the dtivers in streets often crowded. There
were 942 deaths lrem injuries in. coal mines, and 118
from injuries connected with copper, tin, iron, and
°that =bier.

had

Deaths by poisoning increased to 461, about a third
of them being ascertained suicides. There were 25 boys
and men, nearly all following out-door occupations,
killed by lightning.
Sunstroke was fatal to 90 persms, and 114 deaths
were ascribed to gelatio and exposure to cold.
There was a death from the bite of a fox, from the
bite of a rat, from the scratch of a cat, from the bite of
a leech, from the sting of a hornet, and two from sting
of wasp. Thus by one way or another more than half
a million persons closed their lives in England in the
year.

eech, fi
wasp,
"%tt
Ti

The _ 4mes, in a leader noticing the above, says :
" The feet' quoted in our Outer sheet of Monday from the
Report of the RegistranGeeeral for the year 1874 are full of
instruction, especially at the present season, when the first
frosts of winter begin to be felt. The impression which
generally prevails in respect to the chief dangers of human
life is probably very different from that conveyed by these
statistics, and it is easily accounted for. There are a certain
number of diseases, which, whenever they occur, cause ex-
ceptional alarm and inconvenience. Scarlet Fever, for
instance, is an eqaally conspicuous and troublesome enemy.
When any one is attacked by it, the whole household is put in
quarrantine ; the doctor attends regularly, and his periodical
report is anxiously awaited ; the patient is well under-
stood to be fighting a battle with a specific enemy, and
the gravity ot the crisis is appreciated. From time to time
such diseases become epidemic, and then all the inhabitants
of the infected neighbourhood are, as it were, on their guard.
It is well recognised that we are the victims of a hostile inva-
sion and in proportion to the prevalent intelligence is the
anxiety with which all known precautions are observed. The
impression made upon the imagination by specific diseases
would, perhaps, be sufficiently accounted for by the con-
spicueus and critical character which thus marks their attacks,
hut there is another reason which may be not leas operative.
Until within a comparatively recent period they were beyond
question the most frightful, if not the most formidable, of
the enemies of human life. There are many persons living
who can remember much of the horrors of smallpox,
and fevers in days not distant frequently summed-almost the
character of plagues. At a time when ventilation could
scarcely be said to exist, when even the more comfortable
classes lived in orowded and unwholesome dwellings, when
the most reckless habits of eating and drinking were preva-
lent, and when the most elementary principles of the scientific
treatment of disease were unknown or disregarded, it is no
wonder it ordinary diseases assumed a peculiarly terrible
form, and if epidemics of even simple fevers were the occa-
sion of positive panic It may well be that in such days the
mortality due to such diseases, in comparison with that due to
other causes, was vastly heavier than at present, and that there
was much more than imagination in the dread with which they
were regarded. We are not, however, so far removed from
these circumstances as to have out !slid the traditions to
which they gave rise. Persons of middle life are but one
generation distant from the old state of things, and their
parents will have brought them up as they were brought up
themselves, with the traditional view of the relative malig-
naucy of the agencies at the service of Death. So persistent,
indeed, is the impression thus established that it may be
doubted whether anything but the unanswerable statistics
collected, year by year, respecting the whole population of
the country would suffices to introduce a more correct appre-
ciation of our present enemies.

"It is easy to discern the broad practical conclusion which
result from a survey of these ssatisties. Tkey show that the
influences we have most reason to dread are not the diseases
against which every one is en his guard, and which occasion
from time to time So much anxiety. Tfndoubtedly those
diseases are sufficiently insidious and destructive, and we
probably owe their present partial diminution to the ener-
genie and sustained resistance offered to them by medical
science. But, as a matter of fact, the foes against
which we have most occasion to be on the watch are
cold, damp, bad air, and bad food. These are the
causes to which attacks of Bronchitis, Phthisis, Pneu-
monia, Atrophy, and Debi'ity are mainly to be
ascribed, and they are far more to be dreaded than
any ordinary fever poison. No doubt, If they were avoided,
the increased vitality which would be produced, especially
among children, would also greatly lessen the susceptibility
ot the constitution to specific diseases. But, at all events,
It ought to be reassurriag to discover that the chief foes of
human life, Instead of being subtle and mysterious poisons
which defy the curiosity of science, are open enemies
against whom all but the poorest may take easy measures
of precaution. People must, no doubt, be exposed to cold
and wet ; but they can avoid the reckless folly of treat.
ing them as " bracing elements of life, and encounter-
ing them without proper protection. They can repress
the barbarous cruelty of leaving the limbs of tender
children uncovered. They can pay sorupulous attention to
the quality of their children's food; and they can learn to
regard a "cold" as possibly indicating the assault of the
most dangerous of all enemies. After all, these results are
no more, than might have been anticipated by any one who.
duly considered the most simple conditiorus of the human
frame. The mouth tied the Bronchial passages are the parts
of the body by which external influences of temperature and
of air are introduced moat directly into the central parts of
the system; and the mucous membrane which covers them
is the Dust delicate of all the structures—the eye, perhaps,
excepted—which are exposed to the atmosphere Commen
sense would suggest that it is here that the greatest danger
is to be apprehended, and it is to be hoped that, under the
plain instruction of the Itegistrar-General, so simple a lesson
may at last be learnt."