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.

    261/976 (page 241)
    there were only 76 in the fourth quarter, the unprecedented mildness of the season doubtless being the cause of this arrest; the two usually cold months of this quarter, November and December, averaging throughout a temperature 6° higher than had ever been known during the past eighty years. In the next year severe cold set in before the end of January ; in February, the temperature was below the average on most days, there was snow every day; the second week in March was warm, the end of the month cold with snow; the summer was variable, cold, and wet; double the usual quantity of rain fell in July; there was fine weather in August only. Again, from October 21st to November 8th, the temperature rose to 5'3° above the average, at other times it had been below, and November and December were remark- able not only for low temperature, but also for a density of fog and depth of snow hardly ever exceeded in London. The mortality from Croup in each of the four quarters in this year was : first quarter, 93 ; second, 79 ; third, 72 ; fourth, 130; and 145 in the first quarter of the next year, 1854, the weather continuing to be cold. The weekly returns for this period show a correspondence between mortality from Croup and temperature. In the winter quarter of 1852, the weekly numbers for November are, 3, 5, 8, 5; in the corresponding weeks of 1853, they are, 7, 13, 8, 12; the high number occurring on fall of temperature in the second week of that month. In the previous March there was a rise of temperature in the second week; the weekly numbers for this month were, 15, 8, 2, 10 ; and in the next year, 1854, there are 21 deaths from Croup returned in one week in February. In most diseases of the respiratory organs, the greatest fatality is seen in the coldest seasons. The proportional mortality in this class mounts from 11 per cent, in 1852 to 13'5 in 1853, and hooping-cough from 1'8 to 23 per cent., while Croup decreases from 0'99 to 0-86 per cent.; the whole number of deaths from Croup being less in 1853 than it had been for several years. A further illustration of the influence of season and the relation between Croup, the diseases of the respiratory organs, and prevailing epidemics, is afforded by the years 1859, 60, 61. The quarterly returns of the mortality from Croup in London for 1 these three years are as follows:— 1859 1st Quarter. 132 2d Quarter. 103 3d Quarter. 80 4th Quarter. 81 1860 117 80 105 169 1861 236 190 170 252 In the first of these years the summer and autumn were fine and hot. June had a daily excess of 3° of temperature ; in July the mean temperature was 68°, and on the 13th and 18th of that month the thermometer reached 93°; part of October and November was cold JUt Yas warm at Christmas. The next year, I860, presents n remarkable contrast to this : a cold period commenced in June • of the three following months, Mr. Claislier in his report* says “ the -*** «*• * «*. *