Report of the director of the Bureau of Medical Service / William Pepper.

Date:
[1876]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the director of the Bureau of Medical Service / William Pepper. 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.

    27/40 (page 27)
    that the rate of mortality rose as high as 35 per cent, of all cases Bureau of j Medical treated. Service. We have entered thus at length into the discussion of the typhoid fever of 1876 on account of the large amount of public interest which this disease attracted during the Exhibition period. In summing up our remarks upon the sanitary condition of Philadelphia during this interesting time, it will be seen that the general results do not differ Circui.arNo. materially from those stated in our circular issued in the latter part of September. (See Exhibit A, Circular No. 3.) ^ At that time the data in our possession did not enable us to dis- tinguish between the different classes of diseases with as much accuracy as we have done in the following table, which embraces the entire Exhibition period: Population in Thou- sands. Total Mortality FROM ALL Causes. Annual Death-Rate PER 1000 Living. London 3489 37,592 21-54 Philadelphia 900 10,294 22.77 Baltimore 350 4,020 22.97 Chicago 420 4,927 23.46 Boston 342 4,144 24-33 Brooklyn . 506 6,453 25-49 Paris 1851 23,735 25.63 JSIew York 1054 15,492 29.40 Berlin 980 16,407 33.86 Total Mortality FROM all Zymotic Diseases.* Annual Death-Rate PER 1000 FROM Zy- motic Diseases. Total Mortality FROM Typhoid Fever. Annual Death-Rate PER 1000 FROM Ty- phoid Fever. Total Mortality FROM Diarrhoeal Affections. Annual Death-Rate PER 1000 FROM DiAR- RHCEAL Affections. 6905 3-99 606 ■34 3149 1.80 2485 5-5 450 I 1333 2.96 1524 9.2 148 .84 652 3-72 2277 10.8 108 • 51 918 4-37 1422 8-3 98 ■ 56 772 4-5 2583 10 53 T T09! .20 1.21 1485 5-86 5884 II 168 •30 .81 3527 6.69 Results brought up to close of Exhibition. It will be seen from this that of the nine large cities from which we Favorable have been able to secure returns, Philadelphia was second to London posIdJn of alone in point of average total mortality. It will also be seen that Fhiiadeiphis while the annual death-rate from typhoid fever per 1000 living in Philadelphia was higher than in any other of these cities excepting Paris, the annual death-rate per 1000 from all zymotic diseases, which include diarrhoeal affections, continued and eruptive fevers, etc., was relatively smaller in this city than in any other save London. This result is chiefly due to the relatively small mortality from diarrhoeal affections, which gave an annual death-rate per looo of only 2.96, as contrasted with 6.69 in New York, or 5.86 in Brooklyn. If we have been correct in our conclusions previously stated (see pages 14, 25), it may therefore be confidently asserted that Phila- * By zymotic diseases are to be understood all diarrhoeal affections; eruptive fevers, such as smallpox, measles, scaxdatina, etc.; typhoid and malarial fevei’s; diphtheria, etc.