Notes on hospitals / by Florence Nightingale.

  • Florence Nightingale
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Notes on hospitals / by Florence Nightingale. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    the mean of the numbers remaining at the beginning and end of each quarter ; or oftener, if the hospital be irregularly occu- pied ; or, the total number of days spent in hospital by all the cases during the year might be obtained; and by dividing the sum by 365, the mean daily sick would be arrived at. [The total daily diets issued during the year divided by 365 would give the same result.] The sick treated during the year may be obtained by taking the mean of the admissions, and of the discharges from all causes, including deaths. With fixed data, arrived at on these principles, we can readily obtain the proportionate mortality, not only of the whole hospital, but of every ward of it, and also the propor- tionate mortality and duration of cases for each age, sex, and disease. It need hardly be pointed out of what great practical value these and similar results would become, if obtained over a large number of hospitals. The laws which regulate diseased action would become better known, the results of particular methods of treatment, as well as of special operations, would be better ascertained than they are at present. As regards their sanitary condition, hospitals might be compared with hospitals and wards with wards. The whole question of hospital economics as influenced by diets, medicines, comforts, could be brought under examination and discussion. The liability of particular ages, sexes, occupations, and classes of the community to particular forms of disease might be ascertained; other data, such as married or single, previous attacks of illness of the same or of different kinds, birthplace, &c., might be added for comparison, and hospital M 3
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