1881.] 



on the Weather awl Health of London. 



639 



relations observed between tlic curve for suicides (Fig. 19) and that 

 for cephalitis is very striking. 



The maximum mortality for whooping-cough (Fig. 20), gout (Fig. 

 21), and j^hthisis (Fig. 22), occur in the same season as that for tho 

 nervous diseases. The maximum mortality from whooping-cough 

 occurs in the spring months, and tho curve suggests that this is moro 

 a disease of tlie nervous system than of the respiratory organs, a view 

 which, singularly enough, was maintained by the elder Dr. Begbie, one 

 of tho most distinguished of our Edinburgh physicians, upwards of 

 thirty years ago. The relations of gout to diseases of the nervous 



Fig. 20. 



Whooping Cough. 



Meai 



Fig. 21. 

 Ill I I I I III 1 - I I II I I 



I I i 



1 1 1 n 



Fig. 22. 



Phtliisid. 



system are too obvious to call for remark. Phthisis is one of the two 

 most fatal scourges of our British climate, one out of every eight 

 deaths which occur being caused by consumption. Its mortality- 

 curve (Fig. 22) shows unmistakably its intimate relations to nervous 

 diseases, thus affixing greater significance to its known complications 

 with hereditary insanity, scrofula, and some other mental diseases. 



Keference has been made to the influence of the heat of summer 

 on certain nervous diseases. That influence acts fatally, both 

 indirectly through the bowels in the case of the young, and directly 

 on the nervous centres. The curve for convulsions (Fig. 17) is 



