Clinical medicine : observations recorded at the bedside with commentaries / by W.T. Gairdner.

  • William Tennant Gairdner
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Clinical medicine : observations recorded at the bedside with commentaries / by W.T. Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    deduces an average, which occupies a separate column. But before you can use this average as against the num- bers of the present year, you must in every case raise it by one-tenth, to make allowance for the increase of po- pulation ; which, it is calculated, increases by one-tenth in five years. Now, the past week has in London been one of un- usual mortality for the season ; seeing that the corrected average for ten years makes the total mortality of the forty-seventh week of the year 1211 ; while during the past week it has been 1382. This very considerable extra mortality appears to be due chiefly to bronchitis, pneumonia, and phthisis, to which may be added hooping- cough. All of these are 20 or more deaths in excess of the average mortality of the season ; and bronchitis is in excess by the very large number of 123, shewing a mortality much more than double the corrected average of the ten years. These four diseases together have a mortality 188 in excess of the average ; while the entire excess of deaths for the week is only 171 ; the difference being, of course, made by diseases which are below the average, especially typhus, scarlatina, and small-pox, which have at present a low mortality. The other dis- eases which, though to a smaller extent, have contributed notably to raise the mortality of the past week above the corrected average, are—croup (with which I have included laryngitis), scrofula (the disease of the young), and apoplexy, with paralysis, the diseases of the aged ; to which we may add that somewhat vague condition called atrophy (mostly infantile), and that still more