Observations on the present epidemic of typhus / by Robert Perry.

Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the present epidemic of typhus / by Robert Perry. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    irrespective of the age of the patient, as the particular case requu-es the stimulant or does not. ]?ractically, however, the conclusions at which I have arrived, from a retrospective review of my cases, are almost identical with those so forcibly and clearly enunciated by Dr. Gairdner. Owing to the circumstance of a jom-nal of one of the wards having lately gone amissing, which contains the details of a few of the cases, it is not in my power, without an amount of research for which I have not leisure at present, to classify the whole of my cases according as they have been treated with or without alcoholic stimulants. I have, however, ascertained that 534 cases were treated with wine or spirits during some part of their illness, and out of this number 138 died. On the other hand, 491 were treated without any alcoholic stimulants, with only 9 deaths. From the much higher rate of mortality amongst the former than amongst the latter, I would caution any one against drawing the conclusion, that the greater relative number of deaths was at all influenced by the administration of the stimulants. All the inference that I think may be deduced from those numbers is, that a large proportion, say fully one-half, of the cases of typhus in the present epidemic, may be advantageously treated without any alcoholic stimulants. Doubtless a considerable number of those who got wine or spirits would have recovered without a drop of either, but I am satisfied that, in many of them, the risk of a fatal issue would have been miTch increased, and the patients would have had a much more tedious convalescence. Of 245 patients helow 15 years of age, only 29 had any alco- holic stimulants, and several even of that small number had only very small quantities, and for only a few days. The state of the cardiac and radial pulses, as pointed out by Dr. Stokes, is the best guide for the administi-ation of alcohol; and, as I before mentioned, the time for giving and the quantity required must be regulated by it in each individual case. Printed by William Mackenzie, 45 & 47 Hovrnrd Street, Glasgow.