352
Vb.--Zymotic Diseases, sub-group 1.
Vc.-
15
2.
Vd.-Diagram shewing number of cases of Malarial Fever admitted in each month of the year. Ve.-Zymotic Diseases, sub-group 3.
Vf- Vg.
"
""
31
4.
>
5.
VI.-Shewing the rate of mortality in the Government Civil Hospital during the last 10 years. VII.-Shewing the admissions into and deaths in the Government Civil Hospital during each month of last year.
years.
VIIa.-Table of admissions into and deaths in the Small-pox Hospital.
VII6.-The aggregate monthly number of patients visited in the Hospital daily for the last three
From the foregoing it will be seen :---
(1.) That the number of patients under treatment during the year was 1,957, an increase of 164 as compared with that of the previous year; the total number of deaths was 98 a percentage of 5.00. This is a slight increase on that of the two previous years and is accounted for by the greater number of moribund cases brought in to the Hospital, no less than 42 out of the 98 deaths occurred within forty-eight hours of the patients' admission, 39 of these occurring within the first twenty-four hours; and also by the more serious nature of the Injuries admitted, there being 25 deaths under this heading as against 16 in last year. (Vide Table V, iv Injuries).
(ii.) 6,332 out-patients were attended to during the year, these consist principally of minor surgery cases-scalp wounds, lacerated and contused wounds, dog-bites and minor medical cases.
(iii.) Owing to the greater number of females presenting themselves for admission the Female Ward had to be enlarged; during the year 124 females were admitted, an increase of 35 as compared with that of the previous year. Five of these were difficult obstetric cases.
(iv.) There were 8 less Police admitted than during the previous year, taking the different na- tionalities it will be seen that there was a decrease of 17 Europeau, an increase of 24 Indian and a decrease of 15 Chinese Police.
This year only one European Policeman died from the Malignant Remittent Fever which we always get in the summer seasons, this diminished mortality may to a certain extent be due to a more intimate acquaintance with this serious type of malarial fever.
(v.) Two cases of choleraic diarrhoea were admitted, these both recovered; there was no true case of cholera.
(vi.) Dysentery contributed 106 cases with 7 deaths, a mortality of 6.6 per cent., a diminution both in mortality and number of cases as compared with the previous year.
In the appendix are described some cases of dysentery treated with Arsenite of copper; this remedy has been recommended by various writers during the past year, more particularly by Dr. J. SWAN in the Medical Bulletin for August, 1890.
In certain cases this remedy has certainly proved very efficacious, my later experience however does not altogether confirm the favourable opinion I had at first formed of this drug, a more extended series of trials are necessary before any definite opinion can be formed as to its power of curing this disease. Its advantages compared with the usual treatment by Ipecacuanha are that you never get the distressing vomiting so often experienced after the administration of large doses of Ipecacuanha with the resulting depression, and in some cases it has proved successful when Ipecacuanha has seemingly failed.
(vii.) Malarial fever contributed 374 cases as against 423 last year with 4 deaths, a mortality of 1.06 per cent. This disease was neither so prevalent nor so fatal as in 1889. There were, however, as usual some very severe cases of remittent fever, the notes of one of the most interesting of which is given in the appendix.
An extended trial of the various new antipyretics, viz., phenacetin, antifebrin, and antipyrin, has been made in the treatment of the fever stage of this disease and the conclusion we have arrived at is that antipyrin is the most certain, ten-grain doses administered hourly generally brings the temperature down to normal in four doses, in the severer cases of intermittent fever twenty-grain doses administered hourly for two hours will bring the temperature down quicker but there is often found with these larger doses a tendency to vomit and symptoms of cardiac depression. Phenacetin takes much longer to lower the temperature, but does not produce vomiting. Antipyrin has often proved useful when both phenacetin and antifebrin have failed.
year.
(viii.) There were 11 cases of beri-béri admitted with 3 deaths, as against 16 cases in the previous
(ix.) VENEREAL DISEASES.-A still further increase is to be noted in this class of diseases 266 having been admitted during the year, this is more than double the number under treatment in 1888, the greater majority of the cases, namely, 200 were those suffering from chancres molles and gonorrhea. (x.) There were 363 cases classed under Injuries, as against 314 in the previous year. These were of a much more serious nature than usual as shown by the greater number of deaths, included in these were six cases of revolver wounds admitted from the S.S. Namoa on the 11th December, these all recovered with the exception of one. This case was in a moribund condition on admission and only lived a few minutes, the unfortunate man having been shot through the abdomen.