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On further analyzing this return, I find that 9 of the cases remained in
the Hospital for periods varying from 2 to 10 days, when they were discharged
as cured; 23 were kept in the Hospital for periods varying from 11
to 16 days, and were then discharged as cured; 1, a male, aged 30, died
either on the same day or the day following his admission. The total mortality
of those sent into the Hospital was 6, which is 5.3 per cent. One
death, as above stated, took place in 1 day from the date of admission, 1 in
4 days, 1 in 6 days, 1 in 13 days, 1 in 18 days, and 1 in 19 days. Of the
66 patients sent from the lodging houses, 10 were discharged as cured in 15
days, and 1 died on the day after admission.
The question may fairly he asked, were all of the 113 patients suffering
from typhus, typhoid, or from relapsing fever ? Probably the 32 patients
who were discharged as cured after a residence in the Hospital for a period
of less than 16 days, were not suffering from either of the above-mentioned
forms of fever. All of them, no doubt, presented symptoms common to
fever, influenza (a disease now very prevalent) and to some other diseases,
when they were first seen by the Medical Officer of the Union, and were,
consequently, sent off at once to the Fever Hospital.
When relapsing fever, as we are told upon high authority, ''has
attacked patients, and when all its acute symptoms are passed, the sufferers
remain for a while extremely weak, requiring that food and restoratives
should be liberally supplied them, in default of which, the feebleness left by
the disease may often be of indefinite duration."
Notwithstanding all the care that is given to the patients in the Hospital,
it appears from the return, that some have been kept under treatment
for upwards of 4 weeks; one patient remained in the Hospital for 47
days.
Although fever, according to the returns of the Medical Officers of the
Union, has not been so prevalent during this quarter as it was in the corresponding
quarter of the previous year, yet, I am glad to find that the public
authorities, instigated probably by the public press, have seriously considered
the matter, and have adopted the best means of alleviating the sufferings of
the patients, and of preventing the spreading of the disease.
I sincerely hope that the lesson which has now been taught us by the
present epidemic of fever will not be lost, but will induce all persons in
authority to pay more attention than has hitherto been done to the abodes
of the poor, and especially to the condition of the registered common lodginghouses.
The genius, however, of our countrymen still continues to be mainly
directed to the cure of sickness, and the ameliorating of cases of distress, as
is seen by our numerous charitable institutions, but does not give much attention
to the prevention of destitution and misery.