Volume 1

A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds.

Date:
1866-1879
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A system of medicine / edited by J. Russell Reynolds. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    185/976 (page 165)
    of recovery 9'06 days. In the general registry of deaths, it is men- tioned in the same Report, 9,590 fatal cases lasted an average 2'39 days. The duration of the stages has been already alluded to ; the diar- rhoeal may scarcely exist (excepting choleraic diarrhoea), or extend to 24 hours ; the collapse stage may terminate fatally in two hours, or it may he prolonged in extreme cases to 70 or 80 ; the reaction stages may terminate favourably within 48 hours, or may linger on for many weeks, when complicated with fever or other sequlse. Mortality op the Disease.—This is very large, and the averages approach each other in different climates and countries. The mortality to strength of a population may vary greatly, but it has been observed for England, that, whether in healthy or unhealthy districts, the deaths to cases are pretty even; the difference in mortality between such places depending more upon insusceptibility of the population in healthy places, than on any actual difference of violence of the disease. In India the deaths to cases do seem to vary in different ranks of the army : the officers having a lower mortality than the men. We may say in round numbers that more than 50 per cent, of the attacked recover. In some epidemics the mortality is higher, but in others, lower; in some, 70 to 80 per cent, in some, 20 to 30 per cent. The mortality varies also with the period of the epidemic. It is generally much higher in the beginning than in the end or towards the end. It varies also in the different stages, being greatest in the collapse stage. In illustration of the above, we find that, in 1832, in England, the deaths to cases were 47 per cent., in 1848-49, 45 per cent., and in 1853-54, 46 per cent. In Dr. Ewart’s tables for European soldiers in India, for eight years ending 1853-4, it was : for privates, 40-74; officers, 16 66 ; women, 31-74; and children, 39-163 per cent. Eor the native soldiery in the three presidencies, for various long periods of years : for Bengal, 30'54 ; Bombay, 33'06 ; Madras, 42'91 per cent. In the Report of the Cholera Commission for the epidemic of 1861, we find that the mortality of the European soldiery for that season was very high all over the provinces ; the average being 63'8 for all classes in the regiments, but it varied from a minimum of 42-6 per cent, to a maximum of 80 per cent, among bodies of men in cantonments, of strength not below 500. The mortality to cases among the native Indian populations is not ascertainable. Eor native prisoners in jails for twenty-one years, ending 1853, it was 42-6 per cent. With re- ference to the excess of mortality in the beginning of epidemics we find that in 1854, in England, in the fortnight from July 16th to 29th it varied from a. lYin.xi'mntyi nf F)Q *noT» nmaf -frv n n t ^