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21
TULHAM HOSPITAL.
I submit, as usual, some observations on the work of Fulham Hospital
during the year, based on the annual report of Dr. Makuna, the (late)
Medical Superintendent.
On the 1st January there were 17 cases in the hospital: during
the year there were 702 admissions, 585 discharges, and 115 deaths,
leaving 20 cases under treatment on the 31st December. The adult
males admitted were 358, the fema'es 274; while 102 of the cases were
of children under 10 years of age. Of the admissions, 27 were convalescents
from other hospitals, 637 were "acute" cases (as against 729
in 1878), and 38 were other than small-pox cases. Of tLe 115 deaths,
111 were from small-pox, and four from other causes. Several cases
were admitted at the gates, the sufferers having been directed to walk
down to the hospital to know whether they were afflicted with the
disease or not. In numerous instances of varicella (chicken-pox) the
patients had in like manner been sent to the hospital for diagnosis.
The practice of sending doubtful cases to the hospital in this way is
reprehensible, for if the sufferers have small-pox, they may infect other
people by the way; and in the other case they are liable to become infected
themselves in the receiving ward.
The principal contributors to the hospital were Fulham, sending in
144 cases, Kensington 113, Chelsea 105, St. Saviour's 71, and St.
George's 53. The average stay in hospital of patients discharged
recovered was 35.54 days, viz., in round numbers 26, 32, and 42
days respectively, in the three classes of patients designated "well
vaccinated," "indifferently vaccinated" and " unvaccinated."
The mortality was at the rate of 17.48 per cent., as against 16.53
per cent, in 1878, the increase being explained by the fact that a
larger proportion of the cases was of unvaccinated persons. The
proportion of unvaccinated to vaccinated cases, which in 1878 was
1:3.6, was in 1870 1:2 94. The number of unvaccinated children
under five (34) was the same as in the previous year, and the high
mortality in them told heavily in a smaller aggregate number of
cases. Of 155 unvaccinated cases 75 died, or 48'38 per cent., and of
477 vaccinated cases 31 died, or 6.5 per cent. The percentage of
deaths among males was 18' 14, and among females 16.7. Among unvaccinated
children, under five years of age, the percentage of deaths was