- Email: [email protected]
RUMSEY TESTIMONIAL FUND.
665
Staropol, Tlflis, Orenburg, Omnk, and Irkutsk. The sup- deaths of women due to the puerperal condition are not so ply of drugs’s and medicaments for all milit.ary stores costs described in the death-register that their caue can be coranonally 300,000 roubles (.637,500). Independently of this rectly classified. Inquiry has frequently elicited, so the current expenditure, there is a sufficiency of military medi- Registrar General tells us, that cases described simply as cal stores in reserve in the magazines of SI, Ptteraburg, "peritonitis’‘ in medical certificates of the cause of death Livonia, and Warsaw : in the first, of 54,000 roubles;in the are in reality cases of puerperal peritonitis or fever. These second and third, of 25,000 roubles each,—making a total causes, which disturb the statistical accuracy of puerperal rates of mortality, do not, however, destroy the value of £ of 79 000 roubles. 3. The St. Petersburg surgical instrument factory sup- those figures for the purpose of comparing the results for
plies the troops and
medical establishments of the land and some of the civil depfutments, with surgical instruments, apparatus, bandages, and medical artensils. It is under the jurisdiction of the military medical Direction-in-Chief, but immediately under its own director. The labour is hired; the number of workmen There is no fixed scale for the manufacture of over 100. instruments, but they are made and r(,p--tired in proportion The factory produces to the receipts and the demand. annually a sum of from 50,000 to 7-:,000 roubles (.86250 to
different years or for different parts of the country. The increase in puerperal mortality in 1874 appears to have been caused by the exceptional fatality from childbed fever. To this cause 3108 deaths were referred, against 1400 and 1740 in the two preceding years. Previously to 1873 the fata,l cases of childbed fever had never touched 1500 since 1847, for which year this information was first
mariae forces, and
large
given.
proportion of puerperal mortality, which, as we have averaged 69 per 1000 children born alive in England 1874, was equal to 66 per 1000 in London; and in the
The seen,
£9375). CHARING-CROSS HOSPITAL MEDICAL SOCIETY. THE annual conversazione of this Society took place in the Board-room of the hospital on Friday evening, the 27th October, when there was a large attendance of the members of the hospital staff and of students. The proceedings began with an address from Dr. J. Pearson Irvine, in which he urged upon the students the benefits the Society could not fail to confer on those supporting it. There they were taught to express their ideas clearly, to face the criticism of their fellows, and were thus prepared for the future when called upon to speak before their professional brethren or elsewhere. As an instance of the influence which such associations may have outside hospital circles, Dr. Irvine mentioned that some years ago when the Navy and Army Medical Services were in a more unsatisfactory condition than they are now, the condition of these services was frequently discussed at metropolitan hospital societies. As a consequence the true status of medical men was so well made known that. candidates from London medical schools became very few, and thus necessary reforms were hastened. After some suitable and kindly remarks from Mr. Hird, F.R.C.S., hon. president of the Society, and from Mr. Canton, the remainder of the evening was spent in examining the valuable instruments and preparations exhibited by Messrs. Horne and Thornthwaite, Mayer and Meltzer, Baker, Pillischer, Weiss, and the London Stereospopic Company. A pleasant evening was spent, and the Medical Society began its new session in a most hopeful manner.
in several counties ranged from 4-5 in Sussex and Rutland, to 8 7 in North Wales, 8-9 in South Wales, and 9 9 in Northumberland. The proportion of deaths of women in childbirth referred to pueperal fever averaged 3-6 per 1000 births in all England, and of those referred to the accidents of childbirth 3’3 per 1000. In the several counties the fatality of childbed fever was as low as 1-5 per 1000 in Bedford and Rutland, and 17 in Suffolk and Cornwall; whereas it was 4-8 in Durham, 4 9 in Leicester, and 6 0 in Northumberland.
RUMSEY TESTIMONIAL FUND. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—Will you kindly allow me to give the following résumé of the work of the committee of the above fund? The subscriptions received have amounted to .81326 17s., the expenses to .8104. 19s. 6d. Of the balance, £1125 9s. was presented to Dr. Rumsey in cash, and the remainder in the form of a silver salver, with tea and coffee service, the following inscription being engraved on the salver :" This service of plate, together with one thousand guineas, is presented to Henry Wyldbore Rumsey, M.D., F.R.S., by his friends and admirers, in token of their appreciation of his life-long and successful labours for the advancement of State Medicine. July, 1876." The presentation could not take place publicly as Dr. Rumsey’s state of health was so much worse. It will be remembered that the committee prepared and forwarded a petition to the Prime Minister, which resulted in a pension of £100 a year being granted to Dr. Rumsey out of the Civil List.
Your obedient servant. W. H. CORFIELD, Hon. Sec.
P.S.-It is now my painful duty to add that poor Dr. died at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, on October 23rd.
PUERPERAL MORTALITY IN ENGLAND IN 1874.
Rumsey
_____________
THE Registrar-General’s Annual Report for 1874, which has only recently been issued, contains some noticeable facts relating to the mortality of women in childbirth. The deaths of nearly 6000, or more precisely 5927, women were referred to puerperal fever, or to the accidents of childbirth, in England and Wales during that year. These deaths were in the proportion of 69 per 1000 births of children born alive, whereas the average proportion in the preceding twenty-seven years did not exceed 4-9. Puerperal mortality in 1874 exceeded the average, therefore, by more than 40 per cent. In considering puerperal mortality, measured in this manner, two disturbing influences should be borne in mind. In consequence of the non-registration of still-births in England—a serious deficiency in our national system of vital statistics-the birth-register does not correctly record the number of child-bearings; and as the danger to the mother is greater in giving birth to a dead than to a living child, the proportion of deaths of women in childbirth to births registered overstates true puerperal mortality. On the other hand, there is too much reason to believe that all
.
,
THE MEDICAL CONGRESS AT TURIN.
(From our Italian Correspondent.) LovELY weather continued to smile
on
the
Congress,
which, up to the eleventh hour, received accessions
to its numbers from the provinces. In my former letter I should have mentioned that two distinct bodies were represented on the occasion-the Italian Medical Association properly so called, which is now in the seventh year of its existence, and which takes in hand all questions relating to the science of the practitioner. It has its centre at Rome, and numbers about a thousand associates. The other, the National Association of Medical Officers, has for its object the interests of the physician and surgeon when brought into contact with municipal or government authorities. Younger than the former, it has reached its third year, while it includes fifteen hundred members. It was a happy notion of Professor Pacchiotti’s to bring the two associations together,
Staropol, Tlflis, Orenburg, Omnk, and Irkutsk. The sup- deaths of women due to the puerperal condition are not so ply of drugs’s and medicaments for all milit.ary stores costs described in the death-register that their caue can be coranonally 300,000 roubles (.637,500). Independently of this rectly classified. Inquiry has frequently elicited, so the current expenditure, there is a sufficiency of military medi- Registrar General tells us, that cases described simply as cal stores in reserve in the magazines of SI, Ptteraburg, "peritonitis’‘ in medical certificates of the cause of death Livonia, and Warsaw : in the first, of 54,000 roubles;in the are in reality cases of puerperal peritonitis or fever. These second and third, of 25,000 roubles each,—making a total causes, which disturb the statistical accuracy of puerperal rates of mortality, do not, however, destroy the value of £ of 79 000 roubles. 3. The St. Petersburg surgical instrument factory sup- those figures for the purpose of comparing the results for
plies the troops and
medical establishments of the land and some of the civil depfutments, with surgical instruments, apparatus, bandages, and medical artensils. It is under the jurisdiction of the military medical Direction-in-Chief, but immediately under its own director. The labour is hired; the number of workmen There is no fixed scale for the manufacture of over 100. instruments, but they are made and r(,p--tired in proportion The factory produces to the receipts and the demand. annually a sum of from 50,000 to 7-:,000 roubles (.86250 to
different years or for different parts of the country. The increase in puerperal mortality in 1874 appears to have been caused by the exceptional fatality from childbed fever. To this cause 3108 deaths were referred, against 1400 and 1740 in the two preceding years. Previously to 1873 the fata,l cases of childbed fever had never touched 1500 since 1847, for which year this information was first
mariae forces, and
large
given.
proportion of puerperal mortality, which, as we have averaged 69 per 1000 children born alive in England 1874, was equal to 66 per 1000 in London; and in the
The seen,
£9375). CHARING-CROSS HOSPITAL MEDICAL SOCIETY. THE annual conversazione of this Society took place in the Board-room of the hospital on Friday evening, the 27th October, when there was a large attendance of the members of the hospital staff and of students. The proceedings began with an address from Dr. J. Pearson Irvine, in which he urged upon the students the benefits the Society could not fail to confer on those supporting it. There they were taught to express their ideas clearly, to face the criticism of their fellows, and were thus prepared for the future when called upon to speak before their professional brethren or elsewhere. As an instance of the influence which such associations may have outside hospital circles, Dr. Irvine mentioned that some years ago when the Navy and Army Medical Services were in a more unsatisfactory condition than they are now, the condition of these services was frequently discussed at metropolitan hospital societies. As a consequence the true status of medical men was so well made known that. candidates from London medical schools became very few, and thus necessary reforms were hastened. After some suitable and kindly remarks from Mr. Hird, F.R.C.S., hon. president of the Society, and from Mr. Canton, the remainder of the evening was spent in examining the valuable instruments and preparations exhibited by Messrs. Horne and Thornthwaite, Mayer and Meltzer, Baker, Pillischer, Weiss, and the London Stereospopic Company. A pleasant evening was spent, and the Medical Society began its new session in a most hopeful manner.
in several counties ranged from 4-5 in Sussex and Rutland, to 8 7 in North Wales, 8-9 in South Wales, and 9 9 in Northumberland. The proportion of deaths of women in childbirth referred to pueperal fever averaged 3-6 per 1000 births in all England, and of those referred to the accidents of childbirth 3’3 per 1000. In the several counties the fatality of childbed fever was as low as 1-5 per 1000 in Bedford and Rutland, and 17 in Suffolk and Cornwall; whereas it was 4-8 in Durham, 4 9 in Leicester, and 6 0 in Northumberland.
RUMSEY TESTIMONIAL FUND. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SIR,—Will you kindly allow me to give the following résumé of the work of the committee of the above fund? The subscriptions received have amounted to .81326 17s., the expenses to .8104. 19s. 6d. Of the balance, £1125 9s. was presented to Dr. Rumsey in cash, and the remainder in the form of a silver salver, with tea and coffee service, the following inscription being engraved on the salver :" This service of plate, together with one thousand guineas, is presented to Henry Wyldbore Rumsey, M.D., F.R.S., by his friends and admirers, in token of their appreciation of his life-long and successful labours for the advancement of State Medicine. July, 1876." The presentation could not take place publicly as Dr. Rumsey’s state of health was so much worse. It will be remembered that the committee prepared and forwarded a petition to the Prime Minister, which resulted in a pension of £100 a year being granted to Dr. Rumsey out of the Civil List.
Your obedient servant. W. H. CORFIELD, Hon. Sec.
P.S.-It is now my painful duty to add that poor Dr. died at Prestbury, near Cheltenham, on October 23rd.
PUERPERAL MORTALITY IN ENGLAND IN 1874.
Rumsey
_____________
THE Registrar-General’s Annual Report for 1874, which has only recently been issued, contains some noticeable facts relating to the mortality of women in childbirth. The deaths of nearly 6000, or more precisely 5927, women were referred to puerperal fever, or to the accidents of childbirth, in England and Wales during that year. These deaths were in the proportion of 69 per 1000 births of children born alive, whereas the average proportion in the preceding twenty-seven years did not exceed 4-9. Puerperal mortality in 1874 exceeded the average, therefore, by more than 40 per cent. In considering puerperal mortality, measured in this manner, two disturbing influences should be borne in mind. In consequence of the non-registration of still-births in England—a serious deficiency in our national system of vital statistics-the birth-register does not correctly record the number of child-bearings; and as the danger to the mother is greater in giving birth to a dead than to a living child, the proportion of deaths of women in childbirth to births registered overstates true puerperal mortality. On the other hand, there is too much reason to believe that all
.
,
THE MEDICAL CONGRESS AT TURIN.
(From our Italian Correspondent.) LovELY weather continued to smile
on
the
Congress,
which, up to the eleventh hour, received accessions
to its numbers from the provinces. In my former letter I should have mentioned that two distinct bodies were represented on the occasion-the Italian Medical Association properly so called, which is now in the seventh year of its existence, and which takes in hand all questions relating to the science of the practitioner. It has its centre at Rome, and numbers about a thousand associates. The other, the National Association of Medical Officers, has for its object the interests of the physician and surgeon when brought into contact with municipal or government authorities. Younger than the former, it has reached its third year, while it includes fifteen hundred members. It was a happy notion of Professor Pacchiotti’s to bring the two associations together,