Wk do not know why Dr Holme’s report on the Dunedin Hospital, presented to the Provincial Council this session, refers to the year ending March 31s c, 1874, and not to that ending on the corresponding date of 1875. There is, we dare say, some valid reason why this should be the case, and we refer to the circumstance merely for the purpose of excusing ourselves for laying before our readers information that is somewhat out of date. As we have no later returns bearing on the subject, we must just do the best we can with the materials at hand. A good deal may be learnt from the table appended to the report with reference to the relative frequency of the various classes of diseases m Dunedin. There were during the year 822 admissions to tho Hospital* To thoso mast bs added the 129 cases in the Hospital at the beginning of the year, making a total of 951 persons treated during the year. Leaving out of account 358 “surgical cases” and accldants,” we find that the three classes of disease that were most prevalent were— Consumption, sixty-seven cases, inflammatory diseases sixty-six, and ddirium tremens sixty* three cases. The last of these numbers might be almost allowed to speak for itself. If Qsod 1 emplarism is not exactly the cure for the state of things disclosed by these figures, it is very plain, at all events that some sharp remedy is urgently required. It must be remembered that this number represents only the poisons in very poor circumstances who have been driven fairly mad by drink : it tells us nothing of the persons comparatively well-to-do who have been brought into the same condition, nor does it give us any idea of the still larger number of persons m every rank of society who manage to keep themselves constantly on the verge of alcoholic insanity without aotuaJly t over pasting
.the boundary. With regard to the inflammatory diseases, it would appear from the table that the group so named Is made up of inflammations of the various viscera. If this is the ease, delirium to emens is, next tp consumption, the disease which most frequently comes .under treatment at the Hospital .Rheumatism is also a very frequent disease: indeed, if the acute and the chronic cases are grouped together, this disease must head the list with the number sixty-nine. It we class the diseases with reference to. their fatality, we shall find that twenty-seven persons died of consumption during the year, eight from affections of the head, and seven from diseases of the heart. With regard to the latter class it may be remarked that thirtyseven cases were,treated during the year, of which only two were cured, while twenty-five received benefit from the treatment they received, It is probable that this rather large number of cases of heart disease may be owing partly to the great amount of overwork that persons in the Colonies have at some period of their lives to go through, and partly to the frequent occurrence of rheumatism, of which permanent heart disease is too often a consequence. The only other items of interest contained in the report are tho statements that the net expenditure on the Hospital for the year was L 4,980 19s lOd, and that the average coat of each in-door patient is Is HIM per day—this exceedingly modest average being arrived at in spite of the fact that a. large quantity of medicine is expended on out-door patients and in other ways, and that this is reckoned as part of tho cost of the indoor patients.
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Evening Star, Issue 3817, 19 May 1875, Page 2
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604Untitled Evening Star, Issue 3817, 19 May 1875, Page 2
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