Annual report of the General Board of Control for Scotland : 1923.

Date:
1923
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Annual report of the General Board of Control for Scotland : 1923. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    40/408 (page 34)
    deaths from any assigned cause bear to 100 deaths from all causes. Set out in tabular form they are as under :— Causes of Death. England and Wales. County and Borough Mental Hospitals. (a) Influenza ----- 4-8 2*9 (b) Dysentery - - - 0-05 1-5 (c) Tuberculosis - 9-5 13- 7 d) Cancer ----- 12-4 3-0 e) General Paralysis - 0 • 4 14 • 5 (/) Heart Disease - 15-5 10 • 6 (g) Bronchitis - - - 9-0 2-4 (h) Pneumonia - - - - 5-4 7-0 (i) Arterial Sclerosis 3-8 7 • 0 (j) Senility - - . - 7-5 11-0 C.—A third method of comparison is to note the proportion which the number of deaths in mental hospitals bears to that in the general community (at 15 years and upwards). This for all causes is 1 : 43; and, of the above selected causes, six are above this mean, ranging from 1 : 1-3 in the case of general paralysis to 1 : 33 in that of pneumonia. There remain four causes in which the proportion is below the mean, viz. :—heart disease 1 : 63, influenza 1 : 71, bronchitis 1 : 161, and cancer 1 : 177. In each computation, then, the striking fact emerges that deaths from bronchitis and from cancer in mental hospitals are proportionately much less frequent than in the community at large. As regards bronchitis, it is probable that life in an institu¬ tion is protected from exposure to influences that favour the occurrence of this disorder. But in the case of cancer we do not yet know what conditions are prone to induce it, or the lack of which may confer comparative immunity. In a small number of instances it is likely that the mental disorder has supervened upon the outbreak of the bodily disorder; but, if so, there would be a still smaller number of cases regarded as arising in persons who have become insane. Cancer.—In. the 65th Report (p. 26) of the Commissioners in Lunacy a similar relative paucity of cancer cases amongst the insane was noted; and there is reason to believe that in this class there has been no such progressive increase of this disease as is believed to have occurred in the general population. It may therefore be worth while to direct the attention of the Cancer Research Committee to the desirability of a closer investigation of this divergence, as it may perchance throw a sidelight on the still unsolved problem of the etiology of cancer. Registered Hospitals. There has been no change in the number of registered hospitals, which continue to be maintained generally in excellent order,