The Sun.
London, England, 1867-09-26 00:00:00

A YEAR'S MORTALITY.

The annual return of the causes of death in Eng-
land bas been completed for the year 1865. The
enemy attacked with his five several armies. In
every 1,000 deaths, 381 of the population fell before
local diseases, 235 were struck down by zymotic
diseases, 182 by constitutional diseases, 160 by de-
velopmental diseases, and 36 died violent dealths ;
the remaining six were deaths from causes not as-
certained. Local diseases—the inflammations and
functional diseases of organs—carried off 181,877
persons in England, causing nine of the 23 deaths
per 1,000 of the living. The deaths from diseases
of the vital organs swell this number so high-
-22,272 deaths from heart diseases, nearly as many
from diseases of the digestive organs, more than
thrice as many from diseases of the respiratory
organs so essential to life, and a number nearly as
large as this last from diseases of the nervous sys-
tem. The number of deaths in England ascribed
to bronchitis has rapidly increased ; it was but
21,528 in 1856, had advanced to 32,346 in 1860,
and in 1865 reached 36,428. Softening of the brain
is another disease that has increased rapidly of late
years, and in 1865 was fatal to 1,051 males and
627 females; these deaths would formerly have been
classed under paralysis and other heads. The deaths
from diseases of the nervous system include 26,722
from convulsions, deaths chiefly of children.
Among the rarer deaths from local diseases were
five from fright, five from grief, 43 from melan-
choly. The second most fatal class of diseases
—the zymotic (epidemic and contagious)—is swelled
chiefly by fevers and by diarrhea Al diseases. It swept
from life in England 113,948 persons in 1865, the
majority of them young children under five years
of age. Dr. W. Farr, who has made this analysis
of the causes of death, remarks that the class of
zymotic diseases is typified by smallpox, which
has this proper ty, that in its course a certain mat-
ter, which may be called varioline, is generated
in the body, going through a series of transforma-
tions, and capable of inducing, under certain
conditions, similar changes in other bodies. So
also the cholera poison —chlorine— is contained
in the rice-water efflux, and in the dry state
of dust or dissolved in water it is capable of repro-
ducing cholera in a certain proportion of the people
to whose mucous membranes it in any way gains
access. Dysentery and typhoid fever are probably
propagated in the way through the air or water, and
all these serve as a type of those forms of disease
which are not communicable through a fluid secre-
tion, with properties as specific, but not as constant,
as hydrophobic saliva. The deaths by cholera in
England in 1865 were 1,291, by diarrhoea 23,531.
The deaths by fever—typhus, typhia, and typhinia
—rose to 23,034 in 1865, and five-tenths of them
were registered among four-tenths of the population.
The deaths from scarlatina ware 17,700, and from
diphtheria 4,145. The deaths attributed to syphilis
rose to 1,647. 437 persons died from intemperance
and 612 from delirium tremens; 74 from priva-
tion ; 15 from hydrophobia ; 4 from glanders,
for horses as well as dogs communicate
some of their diseases to men. One death
is ascribed to trichina spinals. The third class
of deaths is from constitutional diseases, diathetic
or tubercular, fatal to 88,504 persons in 1865.
These diseases have this in common with the tuber-
cular, that they are diffusive ; and human tubercle
is, even when introduced by inoculation, capable of
inducing tubercular deposits in the organs of
animals. The prevalence of phthisis in the armies
of Europe is considered to be probably due in part
to the inhalation of expectorated tubercular matter,
dried, broken up into dust, and floating in the air
of close barracks. Dr. Farr remarks that to test this
may be difficult, but the origin and propagation of
the most fatal of all human diseases deserves full in-
vestigation. The inquiry should also extend to cancer
and the other constitutional diseases, among which
should perhaps be included diabetes. Among the
deaths from constitutional diseases may be noted