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(This analysis is only of the patients admitted and discharged
during the year, and includes the findings in respect of patients
admitted to outside as well as to local hospitals. The day of
discharge is reckoned from the day of the onset of the illness, not
from the day of admission to hospital.)
The striking features of the table are:- 1. That no return
cases followed on the return home of patients discharged after a
period of under 26 days' detention in hospital. These patients
would mostly be adults, and the figures do not include those of
patients admitted to the hospital as suffering from scarlet fever,
but discharged after a few days' observation. 2. That, in general,
there are more return cases the longer the period of stay in hospital.
Grouping those days when most of the uncomplicated cases
are discharged, namely, from the 26th—31st day, the discharge of
181 patients was followed by the occurrence of 14 return cases, a
ratio of one to 13. In the group discharged in the second half of
the fifth week the return home of 61 patients was followed by the
occurrence of six cases, a ratio of one to 10. Seven cases followed
the return home of 48 patients discharged in the sixth week, a
ratio of one to nine, and four cases followed the return home of
17 patients in the seventh week from the onset of the illness, a
ratio of one to four. 20 patients were discharged in the eighth
week, but caused no return cases; but of the 16 who were in hospital
more than eight weeks in 10 instances their return home was
followed by the occurrence of a case of scarlet fever.
Most of those who were detained for long periods suffered
from a nasal or an aural discharge or both. In all such cases
whose return home was followed by the occurrence of a return
case, these discharges had ceased before the patients were released
from hospital. In a number the discharge recurred some days
after the patients' return home, but in most cases this did not
happen.
Four of the patients whose return home from hospital was
followed by the occurrence of another case in the house had been
removed to hospital on the first day of the disease; 11 on the
second; and 15 on the third. Seven, however, were not removed
until the fourth day of illness, and one each until the fifth and 13th
days. When it is appreciated that the disease was most probably
not diagnosed in most cases until the day it was subsequently