The anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria : in theory and practice / by Walter R. Hadwen.

  • Walter Hadwen
Date:
[1910?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The anti-toxin treatment of diphtheria : in theory and practice / by Walter R. Hadwen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Annual Report for the years 1891-1900,’ gives a table of the average annual death-rates per million living of diphtheria and croup during the last four decennia. Although the last of these, 1891-1900, does not contain the whole of the anti-toxin period, which commenced in 1894, it forms a very clear guide to the present condition of things, for in the later years— ‘croup ’ having, according to the argument, become a vanish- ing point—diphtheria might fairly be considered by itself. The following is the table :— Diphtheria and Croup.—Average annual death-rate per million of the popula- tion, in periods of ten years. 1861-70. 1871-80, 1881-90. 1891-1900. 390 261 286 314 How do the advocates of anti-toxin explain that in 1871-80 the death-rate from diphtheria and croup combined was only 261, whereas in 1891-1900, after six years of anti-toxin treat- ment, it had risen to 314? Also, how was it that this figure 261 represented a drop in the death-rate from a previous 390, although at that time no anti-toxin was used ? ” On July 12 Dr. Hadwen wrote :— “I adhere strictly to the line adopted in my pamphlet as the only possible line of scientific statistical inquiry, and I maintain that the introduction of ‘ croup ’ into the diphtheria statistics, except in the way in which the Registrar- General introduces them, as an interesting consideration of ‘ approxi- mate ’ mortality, is absurd. I repeat, the Registrar-General gives no warrant for Mr. Thomas Morison’s inclusion of croup mortality with diphtheria mortality in order to support a theory as to the value of an alleged specific applicable only to the latter disease. If a disease has been diagnosed incor- rectly, the treatment must also have been incorrect, and the mortality from that disease must, in consequence, have been proportionately great; hence the manifest absurdity of saddling one disease with the mortality of another disease erroneously diagnosed and treated, when the disease thus saddled is being considered solely in relation to treatment. One would have thought that the merest tyro in statistical lore would have seen the folly of such a procedure.”’ [N.B.—This correspondence ceased after a letter which appeared from the pen of Dr. Hadwen’s opponent, who had hitherto signed his name as‘‘ Thomas Morison,” under the new signature of “Thomas Maben,” and Dr. Hadwen’s cursory reference, in his reply, to the fact that “ Maben was a name familiar to him as that of a representative of a firm of manu- facturers of anti-toxin and other sera! ’’]
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