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As will be seen, the number of complications met with has
fallen to an appreciable extent during the past year, a point which
is exceeding pleasing when one remembers the unusual severity of
the diphtheria cases being admitted during that period. It is
also pleasing to note that the complications yielded to treatment
and that the patients concerned were able to be discharged in a fit
condition, although sometimes after a very protracted convalescence.
Only one complication occurred among the remaining 183
non-fatal cases of measles, whooping-cough, erysipelas, typhoid
fever, etc., treated in the hospital during 1936.
Deaths.—Twenty deaths took place during the year, as against
17 in 1935. These deaths occurred from the following diseases:—
Diphtheria 6
Measles and Broncho-Pneumonia 8
Whooping-Cough and Broncho-Pneumonia 2
Septicaemia and Cancrum Oris 1
Broncho-Pneumonia and Scarlet Fever 1
Polio-encephalitis and Scarlet Fever 1
Puerperal Sepsis 1
20
Five patients died within 24 hours of admission to hospital,
several surviving only a few hours.
It will be seen that 50 per cent. of these deaths occurred from
some form of pulmonary infection, in every case but one, bronchopneumonia
following measles or whooping-cough. This is explained
by the fact that only the most severe cases of measles and whoopingcough
were admitted to the Isolation Hospital during the epidemic
of 1936, several of the patients being practically moribund on
admission.
The death rate from diphtheria, 3.3 per cent., is again low,
and is strictly comparable to the complication rate.
Two patients died from concurrent diseases during treatment
for scarlet fever, but in each case the infection bringing about the
fatal issue was present before the onset of the scarlet fever, and
was the direct cause of death.
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