Typhoid fever in Melbourne in 1878 / [by William Thomson].

  • Thomson, William, 1833-1907.
Date:
[1879]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Typhoid fever in Melbourne in 1878 / [by William Thomson]. 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.

    5/12
    very worst local epidemic outbreaks. The rate for the previous year, 1877, was as high as 10 for every 10,000 living, so that the year 1878 was only a degree higher, and indicating a steadily increasing high average, the extent of which it would be difficult to exaggerate, the truth being bad enough. Aware that 1878 had been the worst year ever known in Melbourne for typhoid fever, when it was stated in the annual report of the local medical health officer for Hotham that, with a population of 16,000, only nine deaths from typhoid occurred there during 1878, it seemed to me that if the reason for the marked immunity could be found it might give a clue to the cause so active in other localities. On going about inquiry, the first thing to be done was to verify the number stated. At the Melbourne Hospital I learned that eight deaths from typhoid had been of persons sent in from Hotham. These were registered in South Melbourne, but were really due to Hotham, and would, if added to its nine, give seventeen in all for that place. If these deaths be not so relegated, then the central district would show 56 deaths, which, in its 20,000 inhabitants, would yield 28 deaths from typhoid in every 10,000 living, although the district is in reality far lower in the typhoid fatality than many outlying divisions. After finding this oversight, it appeared desirable to further verify the Hotham return, and on applying for the purpose to the Registrar-General, Mr. Richard Gibbs, that gentleman kindly and promptly caused to be prepared for me a complete tabulated list of all recorded deaths from typhoid fever, entered under the varied synonyms of enteric, gastric, infantile remittent, low, and typhoid fever, by which I find there were in Hotham for 1878 bo fewer than 23 deaths registered instead of 9, as stated.