No. 630] HUMAN MORTALITY BATES 2i 



tion. A precise and critical decision on the point of 

 where these diseases belong in this present scheme of 

 classification is impossible of attainment. Weighing all 

 the evidence carefully, it seemed best to put chronic rheu- 

 matism and gout and acute articular rheumatism in 

 Table V, under " Skeletal and muscular system," rather 

 than here with the kidneys. Much at least of the fatal 

 chronic rheumatism is really a chronic infective arthritis. 

 Gout is a disease due to fundamental disturbances of 

 general metabolism, but the statistical returns lump 

 deaths from this cause with chronic rheumatism. The 

 death rates from all of these diseases are, fortunately, so 

 small that it makes no essential difference to the final 

 synthetic result towards which we are working where 

 they are placed. 



TABLE V 

 Skeletal and Muscular System 



Item 47, " Acute articular rheumatism," and the two 

 tubercular affections, items 32 and 33 (Pott's disease and 

 white swellings) are placed here because the essential 

 lesion produced by the causative agents is in either the 

 bones or the joints. 



All of the rates in Table V are small, and any of the 

 causes of death listed therein could be shifted to other 

 rubrics without sensibly affecting any general result. 



