THE CAUSES OF DEATH 



109 



negligence in fact, and, in the second place, in those cases 

 where such negligence can fairly be alleged its degree or 

 significance is undeterminable and in many cases surely 

 slight. 



Senility as a cause of death is not further classifiable 



TABLE 8 

 All Other Causes 



* In part. 



on an organological basis. A death really due to old 

 age, in the sense of Metchnikoff, represents, from the 

 point of view of the present discussion, a breaking down 

 or wearing out of all the organ systems of the body con- 

 temporaneously. In a strict sense this probably never, 

 or at best extremely rarely, happens. But physicians 

 and registrars of mortality still return a certain number 

 of deaths as due to ' ( senility. ' ' Under the circumstances 



