Isolation hospitals / by H. Franklin Parsons.

  • Parsons, H. Franklin (Henry Franklin), 1846-1913
Date:
1922
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Isolation hospitals / by H. Franklin Parsons. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    among the other patients of a general hospital.” The latter plan appeared to Dr Murchison objectionable on the following grounds: 1. There are numberless instances where typhus has spread in general wards, notwithstanding the most careful precautions, and where the proportion of cases has not exceeded i in 6, or where it has spread from even a single case. [He quoted many instances.] 2. The two objections usually urged against fever hospitals and fever wards, that owing to the concentration of the poison the mortality among the patients themselves and the danger of the fever spreading are increased are contradicted by facts. [During the first 6 months of 1862, 1107 cases of typhus were under treatment in the London Fever Hospital of which 232 died, a case mortality of 20*95 per cent. During the same period 343 cases of typhus were treated in general hospitals in London, and of this number 80 died or 23*32 per cent. The 10S0 cases (1107-27) admitted into the Fever Hospital communicated the disease to 27 other persons, of whom 8 died, i.e. 1 person took the fever for every 40 admitted, and 1 died for every 135 admitted. The 272 cases admitted into the general hospitals communicated the disease to 71 persons, of whom 21 died; or 1 person caught the fever for every 3*8 cases admitted, and 1 died for every 12*9 cases admitted. In the 4 years 1862-5 1 person took typhus for every 5 typhus patients admitted into the general hospitals, but only 1 for every 67 admitted into the London Fever Hospital; 1 person died of typhus for every 14 admitted into the former but only 1 for every 326 admitted into the latter.] 3. The maladies for which patients are ordinarily admitted into general hospitals predispose them to contract typhus on exposure to the contagion, and to have it in a severe and fatal form. 4. The ventilation which is universally admitted to be necessary for preventing typhus spreading in a general ward is injurious to patients suffering from many diseases, such as nephritis, acute rheumatism, bronchitis, etc. 5. In a fever hospital or fever wards it will be always possible to obtain a staff of officials seasoned by a previous attack of typhus, or of an age at which it is not very likely to be fatal, which it would be impossible to obtain for general hospitals. Dr Murchison’s experience led him to the following conclu¬ sions as to the proper mode of dealing with fever patients.
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