On the pathology and treatment of the contagious furunculoid / by Thomas Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876
Date:
1856
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the pathology and treatment of the contagious furunculoid / by Thomas Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/32 (page 10)
    As a proof of the great development of these two diseases, I sub- join a table of the deaths from carbuncle and phlegmon during the five years 1838-1840; in this, however, I have included the returns of the metropolis as well as of England, so as to balance, in some degree, the difference of population during the two periods:— Year. Carbuncle. Phlegmon. 1838 35 16 1839 38 82 1840 33 127 1841 28 118 1842 40 98 The average of these five years is for carbuncle 34*8, for phlegmon 88*2 ; but 645 died of the latter in 1849, and 300 of the former in 1854. The London tables of mortality also show, in some degree, the extent to which this disease, in the carbuncular and phlegmonous forms, has been developed of late years in the metropolis, and the conditions (in part) under which it has taken place; but the deaths, I need hardly say, must be in a very small proportion to the num- bers attacked, inasmuch as it is rarely fatal unless complicated with serious cachectic states. The deaths in London, from carbuncle, during the four years, 1840-1843, averaged 3*75 annually; during the year 1854 they amounted to 91. The deaths in London from phlegmon also averaged 3’75 annually, during the four years 1841— 1844 ; in 1855 they amounted to 51. The increase for both began markedly with 1845, but while the deaths from carbuncle fell from 9 in that year to 3 in 1846, the deaths from phlegmon rose from 10 to 31. The mortality in London from both was nearly uniform during the five years subsequently (1847-1851), that from carbuncle averaging 17*6, from phlegmon 25*4 annually. This was for both an enormous increase on the usual mortality, but in 1852 another sudden increase in the mortality took place, and the deaths from carbuncle and phlegmon were, respectively, 50 and 32. This increase was pro- gressive, in the subsequent years, to a maximum of 91 deaths from carbuncle in 1854, and of 51 from phlegmon in 1855. The deaths in London from carbuncle, during the ten years end- ing 1855, were more numerous during autumn and winter than in spring and summer, in the proportion of 19 to 17- In September, December, and March they were at a maximum, the average being 37 ; during April, at a minimum of 18. The maxima of deaths from phlegmon, for the same decennium, occurred in December and March, being 34 and 35; the minima in May, 18—and August and October—each 19 deaths. How far the varying mortality of the different months is due to variations in temperature and other meteorological conditions, or to changes in the food, or to the out- break of epidemics, is not made out. There is a noteworthy difference between carbuncle and phlegmon, in the ages of the persons dying from them. Of 1252 deaths from