[Sudden death from natural causes among children of preschool and school age (author's transl)].

Sudden natural death the cause of which can only be found through obduction and further examinations, is an especially dramatic event between the ages of 3 and 18, probably the healthiest period of life. The number of such fatalities recorded in the Institute for legal Medicine, Würzburg University, was 0.6% (38 cases). The three main causes of death were: first, respiratory diseases, second, pathological changes of the brain its vessels and meninges, third, heart disease. Physical stress may have contributed to the time of death in 7 of the 38 cases.