Annual report of the Board of Control : 12th, 1925.

Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Annual report of the Board of Control : 12th, 1925. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    45/482 (page 35)
    of patients during the earliest stages of disease, or even when only suspected of suffering from it, has become in many places a matter of routine; this course is not only beneficial to the individual but it reduces the danger of infection. Furthermore, greater attention has been paid of late to the better ventilation of day-rooms; some Medical Superintendents have removed the stops from windows so as to allow of their full opening, and the open-door principle is being adopted as regards wards and their gardens whenever the condition of patients renders these measures possible. Lastly, in some institutions, aerial con¬ tamination by dust in day-rooms has been reduced by the introduction of vacuum cleaners, by arranging that sweeping and dusting are done when wards are unoccupied by patients, and otherwise. Although there are in mental hospitals a large proportion of cases where low physical vitality is a marked feature (with consequent liability to disease invasion) it must not be considered impossible to bring about a further reduction in the incidence of tuberculosis. Improvements have been secured, and there is reason to believe that these can be continued, if our present measures are persisted in, and further developed. Any efforts to attain this end are well worth while, seeing that, even as now improved, the incidence of tuberculosis in mental hospital is still some five to six times greater that it is in the general adult population. Pneumonia.—During the year under review there were, in all, 1,074 deaths from this disease, an increase of 61 over the number recorded for the previous year, and 218 over that for 1923. This increase is probably due in the main to the more extensive prevalence of influenza during 1925 which has already been noted. Pneumonia was certified as primarily responsible for death in 666 instances, and secondarily in 408. Lobar pneumonia accounted for 447 deaths (males 193, females 254), and other forms for 627 deaths (males 294, females 333). Taking as basis the rate per 1,000 of the daily average number resident in mental hospitals, pneumonia generally (all forms) shows a mortality of 10-3 for males and 9-9 for females, lobar pneumonia alone 4-1 and 4*3, and other forms 6-2 and 5-6 respectively. Erysipelas.—During 1925, 179 cases were notified to us, a material increase over the number (119) recorded for the previous year, and a still greater increase over the number (98) occurring during 1924. Of the 179 cases during 1925, males accounted for 41 cases and females 138. Deaths numbered 16—males 4 and females 12. Therefore, although the incidence appears to be much greater amongst females, the case mortality is lower, being approximately 9*8 for males and 8-7 for females. Three female nurses contracted the disease, each case terminating in recovery.