15 JULY 1854, Page 16

D. GRANVILLE ON SUDDEN DEATH. * "THE greatest is behind." It

is Dr. Granville's opinion that sud- den death "has increased and is increasing." This view he attempts to maintain in the present volume, by elaborate inquiries into the facts contained in the returns to the Registrar-General, as well as fists less authoritative or less extensive sources. The more popular and important part, however—the means of diminishing sudden death, and indeed, if we rightly understand the Doctor, of extending life—is reserved for a future volume.

Various circumstances within his own experience or means of knowledge, and possibly two prize essays on the subject published at Milan in 1834, suggested to Dr. Granville the leading idea that sudden death, and its concomitants apoplexy and paralysis, were on the increase. To test this opinion, he applied to the Registrar. General for permission to examine the archives of the office. The result confirmed his It priori conclusion, though from the late period at which the office has been established the inquiry could not be extended beyond this generation. The labour, or some other circumstances, limited Dr. Granville's full and thorough exami- nation to the period since the census of 1841. The curious question, therefore, cannot be determined, whether the cares and excitements of our ultra civilization and " fast " mode of living have rendered sudden deaths more frequent during the last century than at a previous period : for we are inclined to date the true beginning of the modern march of Mammon from Clive's conquest of Bengal, rather than froth the American and French Revolutions. There seems to be no doubt that sudden death is advancing under the present regime. This increase, however, is rather in the cases of apoplexy and paralysis than in deaths lumped together as sudden. The number of fatal cases of palsy in the Metropolis for 1851, com- pared with 1841, should have been 939—they amounted to 1063. In apoplexy the increase was greater ; the deaths should have been 1080—they reached 1250. England and Wales illustrates the fact of increasing deaths with equal clearness : the number of • Sudden Death. By A. B. Granville, M.D. F.R.S., 8:c.; Author of "The Spas of Germany," " The Spas of England," Ste. M.D., by Churchill.

deaths from apoplexy should have been 6196—they were 8093; from paralysis, they were 7318—instead of 6190.

Contrary to the general belief, Dr. Granville is of opinion that sudden deaths are snore frequent in the active portion of existence-- the prime of life or the early period of its decline, than in age. Ar- ranging the sudden deaths of England and Wales into three classes for four years ending in 1850, Dr. Granville arrives at these totals.

7,406 deaths under thirty years of age. 36,411 deaths between thirty and sixty-five years of age. 24,907 deaths above sixty-five years of age.

These facts, however, go but a little way towards establishing Dr. Granville's proposition. Absolute numbers prove nothing in such a case. It is the number of deaths in proportion to the slum- bers living that must decide the point. The age of sixty-five is also too advanced to properly contain the facts of the question; for although sixty-five is not old age, it is beyond that turning- point of life when apoplexy is supposed to carry off the majority of its victims. When we consider the greater numbers Evilsg be- tween thirty and sixty-five than between sixty-five and a hundred, the table seems to lead to the inference of a comparative prepon- derance of sudden deaths in advanced life. Dr. Granville has seen the objection, but we do not think he answers it. "Assuming such to be the fact mathematically, it controverts not the other fact, that while life is at that period when one would expect it to en- dure longer than that of older people, it is seen, on the contrary, (within the last thirty years at least,) to be destroyed oftener by the three causes already mentioned.

"Nor is this a peculiar or exclusive characteristic of human life in this country only. As far as I have had the means of learning by conversation with hygienic physicians of other nations, and by the perusal of foreign sta- tistical reports, the same observations have been made in all countries, wherever great and sudden political commotion; or gigantic com- mercial speculations, and in fact wherever all those events of a pub- lic nature are of frequent occurrence which tend to exalt, depress, irritate, or vex the character and spirit of man, whether through ambi- tion or disappointment, persecution or terror, the pursuit of riches or the love of renown,—in one word, through any and all of those human passions which are antagonistic to the enjoyment of an unruffled temper, and an even state of mind."

Those who feel interested in the statistical particulars of sudden death will find them pretty fully pursued in this volume, through the relations of seasons of the year, town against country, county against county, male against female, with a table of vocations ; but the want of proportionate or percentage calculation will be often felt. Dr. Granville also discusses the question what is life ? deciding in favour of the breath, upon no stronger reason than. that the new-born child does not live till it breathes, and when we cease to breathe we die. There are other topics of what is called, though we think mistakenly, a more popular kind : an account of Dr. Granville's state of health nearly, forty years ago, his consultations with Paris physicians, sketches of them and French hospitals, as well as a picture of the Registrar-General's offices at Somerset House, some remarks on cholera, the strike at Preston, infant mor- tality, if not infanticide, and so forth. These topics are well handled ; but they are out of place ; they overshadow the princi- pal subject, and prevent its complete treatment in a single volume. The real interest would have been ninth greater if, in addition to facts about the increase of sudden death, we had had Dr. Gran- ville's remedies at once before us.