Reports for the year 1891 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance & training ship "Exmouth" committees (6th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board.

  • Metropolitan Asylums Board (London, England). Statistical Committee.
Date:
1892
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports for the year 1891 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance & training ship "Exmouth" committees (6th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    27/192 (page 22)
    The Committee refrain from making any comment on the above table, and the spot maps which illustrate it, as they are of opinion that, inasmuch as no certificates were given in respect of cases admitted into most of the general hospitals, any conclusions which might be arrived at from a comparison of the figures of the various districts would still probably be fallacious. The law on this subject has now been altered, as before mentioned (p. 6). III.—FEVER STATISTICS, 1891. Summary of Tables I. (p. 68).—At the beginning of the year there were 1,936 fever and diphtheria patients under treatment in the seven hospitals then open. The number under treatment declined during the first six months of the year, until the minimum number-—namely, 1,050—was reached, which was on the 14th June; after this date the numbers rose more or less rapidly until the 8th December when the maximum—2,055—was attained. That number, which was less by 380 than in the preceding year, was distributed amongst the various hospitals as follow:— HOSPITAL. Beds occupied. Scarlet. Diph¬ theria. Typhus. Enteric. Other Diseases. Total. Eastern Hospital. 252 55 • • • 58 1 366 North-Western Hospital ... 317 52 • • • 19 1 389 Western ,, 109 23 • • • 21 1 154 South-Western ,, 192 37 • • • 45 4 278 South-Eastern- ,, 212 22 3 120 3 360 Northern ,, 445 29 • • • 34 • • • 508 Totals . ... 1,527 218 3 297 10 2,055 The total number of patients under treatment during the year was 9,745, as compared with 10,123 in the preceding year. The total admissions were 7,809, as compared with 8,334 in 1890, with 5,772 in 1889, with 5,152 in 1888, and with 6,537 in 1887. Up to the latter year the largest number admitted in any one year had been 2,867 in 1882. Judging from the fact that the annual mortality from the various fevers is steadily declining, the large increase in the admissions during the past five years, as compared with any former years, is presumably due not to any increase in the prevalence of the various fevers, but to the increasing readiness on the part of the public to avail themselves of the advantages of the Managers’ Hospitals for cases of infectious disease. The isolation of such large numbers must eventually have a decided effect towards limiting the prevalence of infectious disease, and still further reducing the death-rates.