A contribution to medical statistics from the acting medical officers of the New Town Dispensary of Edinburgh / [Robert Omond].

  • Omond, Robert, 1806-1881.
Date:
1841]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A contribution to medical statistics from the acting medical officers of the New Town Dispensary of Edinburgh / [Robert Omond]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Of the various institutions in Edinburgh best adapted for these useful purposes, the Royal Infirmary occupies the first place, and there can be but one opinion regarding the utility of the exact system of registration recently pursued there; recording, as it does, not only the age, sex, and occupation of each patient, with the nature and history of the complaint, and its duration, but also registering any supervening disease, and, when a fatal result occurs, minutely analysing the cause of death. To possess, how¬ ever, anything like an approximation to the actually existing state of disease in this city, during any particular period, each of the Dispensaries will require to supplement the Infirmary registers by a full report of its own experience, and thus all the medical insti¬ tutions of the city will furnish the means of drawing carefully as¬ certained results from many thousand cases of the annually pre¬ vailing diseases. With this intention, so far as the New Town Dispensary of Edinburgh is concerned, its medical officers have prepared a con¬ cise view of their practice and experience during the year 1840. The field of observation consists of 7273 patients, being either medical or surgical cases, and not including the obstetrical and vaccine departments. Of the above list, 4659 have been visited in their own dwellings, while 2614 have been prescribed for at the Dispensary. It sometimes happens that the same individual is first seen at home, and is then so far better as to come to the institution, or mce versa^ but such cases are registered only once, and all of them as visited at home. With regard to the 2614 patients who applied in person, their number does not furnish any direct evidence as to the gene¬ ral extent of disease, being increased only by the prevalence of trifling ailments, and at once diminished by the appearance of severe disease. The weather also causes the number of such cases to fluctuate. The same patient, who, on a fine day is able to walk to a Dispensary, is obliged to remain at home during a storm. Thus the summer is found to furnish more patients of this class than the winter. The average monthly applications during 1840, are between 217 and 218; during February the number fell to 178, while during August it rose to 262. The following table gives a view of the cases in this depart¬ ment. To mention the specific disease of each patient, as in the Dispensary register, would be less interesting than troublesome. The division into nine general heads is of greater utility, and of more correct application to statistical purposes.