View report page

15
Of epidemic diseases none occurred in a way to require special mention,
except that Small-pox began to show itself at the end of the year, after many
months total absence. This was the beginning of the epidemic which has
since spread so formidably, and it is to be noted that the epidemic shows itself
on the books of this Dispensary earlier than in the records of the Workhouse.
In the table on the opposite page is given a summary of the practice
of the Parochial Medical Staff in the year 1862.
A decrease will be noted in the number of those patients whose slighter
ailments permitted of their attending at the Workhouse. This result was
obtained from an almost absolute abeyance of whooping cough,—23 children
only having been brought by this disease in 1862 against 424 in 1861.
The class of patients seen at their own homes has much increased since
1861, but as the increase in number is accompanied by a much smaller
mortality,* it would appear possible that the present Assistant-Surgeon visits
the sick at their homes when suffering from slight ailments more freely than was
the practice in 1861. Or the increased prevalence of lung diseases which need
to be treated without exposure to the weather, may be the cause why this
class of patients was more numerous.
In the Workhouse Infirmary however, the number of patients has not
only been unusually high, but the number of deaths has been considerably
higher than in other years. In 1862, half as many persons again were admitted
into the Infirmary as in 1861, and nearly double the numbers that were
admitted in 1858. Lung diseases here again helped materially to swell the
numbers, but the principal cause of the increased admissions is found in fevers
of various forms. Three hundred and ninety-six patients suffered from continued
fever, 359 of them being stated to have had typhus. Against these
large numbers there were only 39 fever cases admitted in 1861, and 26 in 1860.
It has before been mentioned that several inmates were attacked in the
Workhouse by the contagion of typhus, and that 7 of them died. Considering
how exceedingly important it is for the treatment of the sick and the prevention
of contagion, to remove patients from their close rooms, it cannot be doubted that
more advantage was gained than injury done by the removal of these typhus
cases to the Infirmary. Still as it is possible (page 11) to get all this advantage
without the same risk of contagion to other inmates, by the plan of treating the
sick in a special Hospital, it is to be hoped that in future years typhus patients
may be sent to the Fever Hospital or into special isolated wards instead of
into the Workhouse.
SECTION VI.—On the Deaths in St. Giles's where there was no Certificate
of the Cause from a Medical Man or Coroner.
Forty-five deaths were registered in St. Giles' in 1862, and the corpse in
each case interred, about which there ought to have been enquiry.
In 36 of these instances there was no medical certificate of the cause of
death. In 11 of the 36 cases, this omission is stated to have occurred through the
absence of any medical attendant in the fatal illness. In the other 25 cases,
it is simply recorded that the alleged cause of death was not certified. Here
are samples of this kind of entry.
*The mortality in this class of patients which had averaged 8½ per cent, in the four
preceding years, rose in 1861 to 14 per cent.; in 1962 it was only 6½ per cent.