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XVI. — The Weather, Influenza, and Disease : from the Records of the Edin- 

 burgh Royal Infirmary for Fifty Years. By A. Lockhart Gillespie, 

 M.D., F.R.C.P.E. ; Memb. Scot. Met. Soc. ; Medical Registrar, Edinburgh Royal 

 Infirmary. (With Six Plates.) 



(Read January 20, 1896.) 



In the following pages I have attempted to analyse various groups of figures 

 derived from the records of the Royal Infirmary. When appointed Medical Registrar 

 to the Infirmary in October 1891, it occurred to me that it might lead to interesting 

 results if the admissions into the Medical Wards were contrasted with the varying states 

 of the atmosphere, a sufficiently long time being taken to avoid the fallacies attendant 

 on statistical generalisations from insufficient data. At first my intention had been to 

 investigate the influence of the weather on the diseases of the principal systems, but as 

 the work progressed I found that the repeated attacks of Epidemic Influenza so modified 

 the results that I had perforce to take up the study of that disease in addition. The 

 Infirmary year begins on the 1st of October ; and, although the figures might have been 

 calculated with some trouble for the year from the 1st of January, they have been left 

 for the most part in their original form. The period to which most of the figures relate 

 comprises the seven years from 1st October 1888 to 30th September 1895. Each case 

 is noted as on admission, and each death as it occurred. Most of the figures are given 

 as weekly totals. The year 1888-89 is included because no epidemic of Influenza 

 occurred during it. In each of the other years epidemics were present. 



The meteorological data have been obtained from the weekly reports of the Meteoro- 

 logical Office of London, and invariably refer to the East of Scotland as a district. The 

 data are taken for the district, and not for Edinburgh alone, because the patients of 

 the Royal Infirmary are drawn from the country as well as from the city. For some 

 of these figures I have to thank Dr Buchan and Mr R. C. Mossman. 



The meteorological facts taken comprise the weekly type of weather, i.e., cyclonic 

 or anticyclonic, the extremes of temperature for the district for each week, and the 

 mean weekly rainfall for the same district. The mean weekly temperature is also 

 noted. More use is made of the extremes of temperature than of the mean, for I 

 believe that rapid changes of temperature have a greater influence on disease than the 

 actual mean. 



VOL. XXXVIII. PART III. (NO. 16). 4 L 



