Vital statistics of Glasgow, illustrating the sanatory condition of the population / by Robert Cowan, M.D.

  • Cowan, Robert, 1796-1849.
Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vital statistics of Glasgow, illustrating the sanatory condition of the population / by Robert Cowan, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    must he kept in view that the majority of the patients above 10, who died from small-pox in 1836, were inmates of the hospital, none of whom had been vaccinated. The increasing prevalence of small-pox should attract the attention of the public. It is a disease which has caused a mortality during the last few years inferior only to that of typhus and measles, and it is one which could be eradicated, under proper management, at a trifling ex- pense, less indeed than the sum paid from the poors’ rate for the coffins of its victims. The rate of mortality from small-pox is assumed upon good authority to be 1 in 5 of those attacked. I 2. Scarlet Fever. Table of the Deaths from Scarlet Fever, with the Ages, from 1835 to 1839. Years Under 1 Year. 1-2 2-5 5-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 50 and up- wards. Total. 1835 27 50 89 73 23 7 2 2 273 1836 31 57 136 86 25 9 5 1 2 355 1837 4 9 34 22 5 3 1 . , 1 79 1838 3 15 42 17 7 1 1 1 • • 87 1839 29 45 104 74 10 • • •• •• • • 262 T o e til 97 176 405 272 70 20 9 4 3 1,056 The mortality from scarlet fever is liable to very great variations in different epidemics, depending on the virulence of the epidemic, the season of the year, and the worldly condition of the family in which it makes its attacks. Among the better classes in Glasgow, it is by no means a very fatal disease, except in particular families, where, from peculiar circumstances of constitution, it occasionally carries off more than one member of a family, and hence arises an exaggerated notion of its fatality. I agree with Dr. Southwood Smith in considering the rate of 1 in 11 of those attacked as very high; and, in forming an estimate of the numbers attacked, from the number of deaths, I am inclined to assume the rate of mortality for the five years as 1 in 12. This would give the number attacked during the last five years as 12,672, which I am con- vinced is rather under, than above, the exact truth. 3. Measles. Table of the Deaths from Measles, with the Ages, from 1835 to 1839. Years. Under 1 1-2 2-5 5-10 10-20 20-30 30-40 40-50 Total. 1835 116 141 121 34 10 4 426 1836 86 209 183 38 1 1 518 1837 77 133 122 16 2 1 350 1838 76 124 161 39 3 1 1 405 1839 165 259 276 73 7 2 1 783 Total. 520 866 863 200 23 9 1 1 2,482