1827.1 Monthly Medical Report. 217 



child's constitution precluded the employment of those active means which alone could 

 have promised a successful result. Leeches failing to afford relief, a blister was applied. 

 To those who know the effects of blisters when there is a tendency to effusion in the lungs, 

 it is unnecessary to say what happened in the sequel. The blistered surface sloughed, the 

 pulse sunk, the" countenance became livid, and death quickly closed the scene. 



Small-pox has lately appeared in several districts in the west end of the town, especially 

 about Burton Crescent, and in the narrow streets adjoining Golden Square. In very many 

 cases it has proved fatal, nor does there appear the slightest disposition in this disease (when 

 occurring in the natural way among: those wholly unprotected,) to relax even in the faintest 

 degree from that virulence which distinguished it in former times. It is peculiarly gratify- 

 ing to the Reporter to beable to say, that 3010 persons were vaccinated under bissiipennleud- 

 ance, between the 1st January and 31st December, 1826, a number which, though it 

 falls far short of the year preceding, may yet be received as an (incontrovertible proof of 

 the general esteem in which vaccination is still held by the lower and middling classes in 

 the metropolis. It is very desirable that the young women who come up from the country 

 to London, as domestic servants, should be tested (or re-vaccinated) prior to taking a situa- 

 tion. Partly from change of air, and partly from the imperfection of the vaccine lymph 

 in some counties, persons under these circumstances are peculiarly prone to suffer (and that 

 seriously) from small-pox ; and the Reporter, in thus calling public attention to the fact, 

 is anxious, as far as possible, to lessen a calamity of which he has lately seen too many 

 distressing instances. The Bills of Mortality announce, that in the year 1826, only 503 

 persons died in London of small-pox, a number which, compared with that of 1825 (1309), 

 is wonderfully small. The Reporter has generally observed that his professional brethren, 

 are distrustful of the Bills of Mortality, but he is well convinced that in the great majority 

 of cases the causes of death are fairly reported, and that the information they convey is at 

 once instructive and authentic. Nothing can shew more strikingly than they do the gra- 

 dual but great improvements which are taking place in the value of human life. Almost 

 every succeeding table shews an increase in the excess of the christenings over the burials. 

 It may not, perhaps, be irrelevant to the professed object of this report to point out a few 

 of the principal facts which the last published Bill of Mortality affords us. 



The total number of deaths for 1826 amounts to 20,758, of which more than one-fourth 

 (5290) are by consumption alone, a melancholy proof (if any were wanting) of the ex- 

 tent and fatality of this wid<?-spreading malady. The deaths under five years of age 

 amount very nearly to 8000, of which 2588 are by convulsions. This is, next to con- 

 sumption, the most fatal of all diseases. The Reporter hud occasion to witness a remarka- 

 ble instance of the kind in the course of the last month. The child, one year and a half 

 old, was very engaging and pretty, and had been far too much petted by the parents and 

 neighbours. Indulged in every thing which her appetite fancied, the child's system became 

 quickly too full of blood, and when the cold weather set in, the brain was the part to suffer, 

 and a sudden convulsion put a period to the child's life. On examination of the body, the 

 substance of the brain appeared very soft, and in a state of excessive vascularity. The 

 membranes of the brain too were deeply suffused with blood, while every other part of the 

 body was sound and well formed. These facts are interesting, inasmuch as they suggest 

 measures, both of prevention and of cure, for this scourge of infantile life. They point out 

 the danger that may accrue from the indiscriminate employment of the warm bath in cases 

 of convulsion. What could it have done in this instance, and what did it actually do ? but 

 augment the determination of blood to the head, and accelerate the fatal event. The ap- 

 plication of leeches to the head, and of cold cloths, is what science dictates, and what, at 

 the same time, the experience of the Reporter has found, in many case?, to be most emi- 

 nently useful. 



Measles, water in the head, and hooping-cough, would seem, from the Bills of Mortality, 

 to be about equally fatal to young persons. Each of these complaints has carried off, dur- 

 ing the past year, about seven hundred victims, the common average. It is a very striking 

 circumstance, that the deaths by small-pox should, this year, fall so far short of the mortality 

 by those three complaints, which, though occurring at the same period of life, are viewed 

 by the public with so much less uneasiness. 



Fever has proved more than usually fatal during the last year, the numbers being, in 1825, 

 896, in 1826, 1025. This is no more than might reasonably have been anticipated from the 

 tenor of former Reports in the Magazine. Inflammation is always a prominent disease in 

 the Bills of Mortality, taking its place third in the series of fatal disorders. 2412 is the 

 number reported as having died of inflammation in 1826. Asthma, or chronic bronchitis 

 is the next in succession, which is followed by the other principal complaints affecting the 

 advanced periods of life, viz. dropsy 885, apoplexy 363, mortification 244. It is worthy 

 of remark, as a satisfactory criterion of the public health in Loudon, that one-fifth of the 

 total mortality of the past year has occurred in persons who have passed then 1 sixtieth 

 year. 



8, Vppcr John Street, Golden Square, GEORGE GREGORY, M.D. 



January 22, 1827. 



M.M.-vtew; Series, VOL. III. No. 14. 2 F 



