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41
Committee were informed of 165 cases of outbreaks
of illness after the return of patients from the
Board's hospitals, 10 of which occurred during the
years 1891-2, 106 during 1892 and 1893, and 49
during the first half of 1895. The Committee
compute the average as "1 alleged case of infection
for every 285 discharged." They make no separate
calculation for each group into which they divide the
cases. No particulars are given as to the cases reported
to the Committee, who remark that "many of these
cases did not develop infection until so long a period
after the return of the previous cases from hospital
as to render it improbable that the discharged
patient could have been the cause of the infection
of the second case."
The replies from the provincial hospitals showed
that the average detention in hospital of scarlet
fever patients varied from thirty-seven to seventytwo
days, and of diphtheria patients from eighteen
to forty-two days. These figures were based on
the experience of 1893, and all fatal cases were
excluded. In the Board's hospitals the average
detention was—for scarlet fever patients, seventy
days (in 1892), and for diphtheria patients, fortytwo
days. It should be noted that the detention
here mentioned for the Board's patients does not
cover the whole period in which "return cases"
were reported, and that the year 1892 was not an
epidemic year, and was presumably one in which