260 
DE. BOYD’S TABLES OF THE WEIGHTS 
Table No. I . — Assigned causes of death. 
In diseases of the digestive organs the disproportion between the sexes was great, 
98 females to 45 males ; there were 13 cases of infantile jaundice, 2 cases of imperforate 
anus, and 1 of malposition of the viscera in a new-born male. Diseases of the genito- 
urinary organs were more frequent amongst females than males, 33 to 15. Above half 
the mortality was owing to diseases of the respiratory organs ; the per-centage amongst 
the male adnlts was 64-5, and amongst the females 47-6. In infants from 3 months to 
4 years, pneumonia, frequently combined with eruptive fevers, prevailed ; from 4 to 60 
years pulmonary phthisis was most prevalent ; and after 60 years pneumonia again pre- 
vailed. Of phthisis, there were 253 males and 140 females. Under diseases of the 
vascular system have been included those of the heart and blood-vessels, diseased state 
of the blood, purpura, hgemorrhage, dropsy, cachexy, scrofula, and cancer, which in the 
advanced j^eriods of life, after 50 years, fell most heavily on females; the numbers were 
85 males, and 120 females. Diseases of the nervous system were most fatal in infancy 
and old age, especially amongst male infants and aged females ; the total numbers of all 
ages were males 167, females 187. Under the head “locomotive organs” are included 
accidents, diseases of bone, skin, and cellular tissue, of which there were 36 cases in 
both sexes. Of fevers, about 50 cases of the eruptive form occurred in infancy, and of 
ordinary fevers about 50 in adults. There were 43 “inquest cases,” of which 23 w’ere 
infants, mostly new-born, found exposed, and 20 were adults. There were 51 “ causes 
unknown,” viz. 47 still-born and new-born infants, and 4 females upwards of 80 years. 
Results. 
The general results obtained from a review of the foregoing cases among the poor of 
the parish of St. Marylebone, appear to be that, with few exceptions, the body and 
internal organs arrived at their full size in both sexes between 20 and 30 years. In 
children especially, the body was attenuated from disease : for example, one scrofulous 
female child, aged 3 years, weighed only 8|-lbs., and the numbers about that age were 
insufficient to counterbalance the effect of such cases on the mean result, and form a 
standard of comparison for children of the same age under more favourable circum- 
stances. The average weight of the males was greatest at from 70 to 80 years, whicli is 
to be accounted for by the large proportion cut off at earlier periods by pulmonary 
phthisis. The mean weight of the male brain was, at all periods, above that of the 
female, which was the probable cause of the large number of still-born male infants as 
compared with females, 51 to 32, and the necessity of resorting to craniotomy in five 
instances in the males only. The highest average weight of the brain in both sexes 
wms from 14 to 20 years; the next highest was in the males from 30 to 40, and in 
the females from 20 to 30 years; but it will be observed that the number of cases 
were much fewer in these than in other later periods. The weight of the lungs was so 
much, and so frequently increased by disease, that healthy lungs were exceptions: it 
