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9
Section VI.— On the Diseases and Deaths in the Practice of the Public Medical
Institutions of St. Giles's in 1865.
In the year 1865, there appears from the records of the public medical
institutions, to have been an average amount of sickness in the district of St.
Giles. These records give information respecting sickness that cannot be
derived from the death registers, and have therefore an importance of their own.
On the following page are given the numbers of persons under treatment
in each department of the workhouse practice. In all, there were fewer cases
than in 1864, and the mortality was not only actually less, but less in proportion
to the numbers under treatment.
In the last of these reports, it was mentioned that the Directors of the Poor
had resolved to send their fever patients to the Fever Hospital, instead of
treating them along with other patients in the wards of the workhouse. This
resolution appears to have been come to from an observation of the danger to
which other persons were exposed through the proximity to them of this contagious
disease. As justifying the action of the Directors, it is well to quote
figures that show for Hospital and Workhouse the relative risk of fatal typhus
being contracted by nurses or other inmates from those admitted for this
complaint.
Total number of typhus cases under
treatment in 3 years, 1863-4-5
Total deaths from typhus, or in
proportion to attacks
Of the total deaths from typhus, the
proportion of those catching the
disease in the Institution to those
admitted with the disease from
outside, was
Hospital.
5777
Hospital.
1040
18 per cent.
Hospital.
16:1024 or
1:64
Workhouse.
631
Workhouse.
86
or 13½ per cent.
Workhouse.
16 : 70
or
1:4¼
It is seen that the Hospital has a greater apparent rate of mortality in
its cases, but without other information, and especially without the means of
comparing the ages of the patients under treatment in the two institutions, no
deductions can be drawn from this circumstance.* But the very important
fact is also seen that for every four or five deaths from typhus admitted
into the workhouse, one person, who was resident in the workhouse for
some other reason, loses his life from the contagion: whereas in the hospital,
the proportion of deaths in those admitted, to deaths of inmates, was only
64 to 1. This proportion indicates the degree of usefulness as against the
degree of risk. There is always risk to others in treating this very contagious
disease, and at the hospital it is reduced to a minimum.
At the Lying-in Hospital in Endell-street, the year 1865 has witnessed a
higher mortality than usual. This hospital has about 200 cases of labour
yearly. Last year it lost five mothers and ten children. The deaths of the
children were mainly, after a very few days of life, from congenital weakness.
The deaths of the mothers were from, diseased heart, causing exhaustion after
labour, 1 haemorrhage after labour, 1; puerperal hysteritis, 1; acute uterine
phlebitis, 1; pneumonia, 1.
At the Bloomsbury Dispensary, a large number of patients, mostly from
the parishes of St. Giles's district, have received relief. The following (p. 11)
gives an abstract of the work of this most useful charity.
* In 1865 the death-rate from typhus was rather smaller in the Hospital than it
was iu the Workhouse, while typhus was treated there.