London's Pulse: Medical Officer of Health reports 1848-1972

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Islington 1910

[Report of the Medical Officer of Health for Islington, Metropolitan Borough of]

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"A few figures to prove these statements will be of interest.
"Professor Welch shows in a Paper published in the ' Transactions
of American Physicians ' that he collected 82 hospital reports dealing
with a total of 7,000 cases treated with antitoxin, among whom the
average fatality was only 17'3 per cent., and that in 45 of these reports
the previous or simultaneous fatality had averaged 42T per cent.
"In Berlin, Baginsky reported 525 cases of diphtheria in children
treated in the Kaiser and Kaiserin Friedrich's Hospital for Children
between March 15th, 1894, and March 15th, 1895, with a fatality of only
15.0 per cent. Right in the middle of this period (August and September)
the supply of antitoxin failed, and at once the mortality rose higher than
it had been before the new treatment was introduced, namely, to 48.4 per
cent.
"A similar depletion of the stocks in hospitals situated so widely
apart as Prague, Vienna and Trieste caused similar involuntary experiments,
with the result that the fatality, which had fallen during the
periods of antitoxin treatment to 12.7, 22.0 and 18.7 per cent. respectively,
rose again during the interval in which no antitoxin could be procured to
53.0, 65.6 and 50.0 per cent.
"In the Charite Hospital for Children in Berlin, previous to the
serum treatment being introduced in 1894, the fatality among the little
patients had been 53.6 per cent., but from that date to the end of 1897 it
was only 15.9, which is equal to a saving of an additional 377 in every
1,000 patients treated.
"In all the Berlin Hospitals from 1886 to 1893 (inclusive) 14,522
persons were treated for diphtheria, of whom 5,408 died, or 37.3 per cent.
From the latter date, when the antitoxin treatment began, to the end of
1897 there were 10,026 patients under treatment, of whom 1,823 died, or
18.2 per cent. Consequently there was a saving of 191 additional lives in
every 1,000 treated.
"In the Metropolitan Asylums Board's hospitals during the three
years 1892-3-4 the fatality averaged 25.6 per cent., while in the succeeding
three years it was only 16.7 per cent., or a saving of 89 lives in every
1,000 treated.

"The following are the figures as given in 'The Lancet' of the 10th instant * by Dr. E. W. Goodall:—

189224.8 per cent.
189327.1 „
189425.0 „
189518.3 „
189617.7 „
189714.9 „

*Dec. 10th, 1898.