On some statistical indications of a relationship between scarlatina, puerperal fever, and certain other diseases / by G.B. Longstaff.

  • George Blundell Longstaff
Date:
1880
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On some statistical indications of a relationship between scarlatina, puerperal fever, and certain other diseases / by G.B. Longstaff. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    3/18
    ON SOME STATISTICAL INDICATIONS OF A RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SCARLATINA, PUERPERAL FEVER, AND CERTAIN OTHER DISEASES. By G. B. LONGSTAFF, M.A., M.B., Cert.Prev.Med.Oxon. [Read: April 7th, 1880.] About a year and a half ago the idea occurred to me that by plotting out by the graphic method the annually vary- ing death-rates from various causes in England and Wales, as given by Dr. Farr, in the Registrar-General's Annual Reports, interesting results might be obtained, more espe- cially as the resulting curves would allow of easy comparison. It must be well known to all present that results which can only be arrived at with much labour, and some uncertainty, by the study of long columns of figures, become at once obvious when the same figures are reduced to diagrams. The object of my investigations has been, not so much to ascertain the fluctuations in the fatality of the several diseases, interesting as these may be in themselves, but rather, by the careful comparison of the curves, to see whether any, and if so what, relations subsist between dis- eases believed to be distinct, with a view to correcting, if needs be, the methods of classification now in use, but chiefly to search for ^etiological clues. I have accordingly traced eighty-nine curves, representing the death-rates per million in England and Wales from as many “alleged causes”; the figures being obtained from a table in the “letter of Dr. Farr to the Register-General” at the end of the annual report. In my smaller diagrams, of which I have a specimen here, the facts are represented for the twenty-nine years 1850-78 inclusive. By a simple application of the law of combinations, it will be found that to compare all these eighty-nine curves, two and two together, would involve 3,910 operations. Of these I have as yet only actually made 1,425, leaving still no fewer than 2,491 to be performed. However, as the zymotic diseases have been compared with nearly all the others, there is