Reports for the year 1895 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance and training ship "Exmouth" committees (10th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board.

  • Metropolitan Asylums Board (London, England). Statistical Committee.
Date:
1896
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Reports for the year 1895 of the statistical committee and the medical superintendents of the infectious hospitals and imbecile asylums, also of the ambulance and training ship "Exmouth" committees (10th year of issue) / Metropolitan Asylums Board. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    19/264 (page 15)
    (5.) Oases of Mistaken Diagnosis.—Fever.—In the course of the year no fewer than 1,277 patients, or a percentage on the total admissions of 7*6, were, after admission at the fever hospitals, found not to be suffering from the diseases mentioned in the medical certificates upon which they were removed to hospital. The largest number of cases of mistaken diagnosis admitted at any one hospital was, as in previous years, at the Eastern Hospital, where the proportion was 288 mistakes out of 2,624 admissions, or 11*0 per cent, of the total. We feel bound to call the special attention, not only of the Managers, but of the sanitary authorities, medical officers of health, and the medical profession generally to these figures. It is at any time a serious matter for the ratepayers that so large a number of beds provided at great cost for fever patients should be occupied by patients not suffering from fever; it is even more serious when, as happened last year, the result of the admission of non-fever cases is the exclusion of patients really suffering from fever. And this is only one side of the question. It is a very serious matter for a patient suffering from nothing worse than measles or tonsillitis to be placed in a scarlet fever or diphtheria ward, and so exposed to the infection of these more dangerous diseases. Our medical superintendents, we are persuaded, do their best to exclude all patients obviously not suffering from the disease stated on the certificate. But evidently there must be many cases where they are not able to contradict the certificate, however much they may distrust it. In this connection we would further refer to Summary Table XIV., on p. 106, and our comments on it on p. 34. Smallpox.—Of the patients admitted to the smallpox hospital ships, 10 were not suffering from smallpox at the time of admission. Of this number five were infants admitted with their mothers ; and five suffered from other diseases, a list of which is given in the report of the Medical Superintendent, on p. 150. From these figures it appears that the number of patients admitted to the smallpox ships through mistaken diagnosis was five, or only 0*5 per cent. It must be remembered, however, that in the case of smallpox the original medical certificate is checked by the examination of a medical officer of the Board at the wharves. If therefore we take the total number of cases originally certified as smallpox and removed to the wharves, we find that the mistaken diagnoses numbered 118 out of 1,045,* or 11*3 per cent.; and these are the figures properly to be compared with those given above in the case of fever. * The IS cases referred to in the footnote to p. 150 are not included in these figures.