Statistical studies in immunity : natural immunity and the capacity for acquiring immunity in the acute infectious diseases / by John Brownlee.

  • Brownlee, John, 1868-1927.
Date:
[1905]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Statistical studies in immunity : natural immunity and the capacity for acquiring immunity in the acute infectious diseases / by John Brownlee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    from scarlet fever, enteric fever, and diphtheria, in seventy-six English towns for the live years 1893-1897. Table A. Number of years in which diphtheria has been epidemic classified according to prevalence of the disease and the fatality. (a) Norway, 1867-1891. Case rates per 100,000 Fatality ®/o 0—100 100—200 200-300 300—400 400—500 500—600 13—18 4 2 — — — — 18—21 3 — — — — - 'V=-f 21—24 1 3*1 — 4 — 1 24—27 1 1 1 2 2 — (b) Copenhagen, 1855- -1894. Case rates per 100,000. Fatality % 0—200 200-400 400—600 60^- 10—12 — 5 — 6 12—14 2 1 2 1 14—16 1 3 1 2 16—20 — 4 1 1 20— 9 1 — As the natural histories of infections diseases present different characteristics it will be better in arranging the evidence to discuss each disease separately. With regard in the first place to diphtheria, it is to be noted that in the towns of England where the disease is least prevalent it is most fatal. This might well be a fictitious result, depending on the likelihood that where the disease is most common the serum treatment will be more efficaciously carried out, while mild cases will be more certainly recognised. A like relation, however, is observed to hold when the numbers of cases anrl deaths from diphtheria occurring in Copenhagen (Table A) for the series of years 1855-1894 are examined. On the other hand, the statistics of Norway and of Hamburg show the opposite tendency, the epidemic years being associated with a definitely higher case mortality. The factors of infectivity and virulence are thus capable of existing in very different degrees of association. I am not able to trace any individual outbreak of diphtheria from beginning to end and consequently cannot make any observations as to how the fatality varies as a single epidemic proceeds from start to finish. 1 In explanation of table for instance the 3 marked by an asterisk indicates that in three years the amount of diphtheria was between 100 and 200 per 100,000 of population, and the fatality, i.e. the case mortality, between 21 and 24 “/o-