367
The correction necessary for the unequal allotment of the two sexes is, however,
a TGI*}* small one.
Among bath cases in every 22 cases 4 were females.
„
non-bath „
„ 20 ,, 4 „
„
Now in 065 bath cases there should be approximately 565
2
X 4 —102 females.
But to be in the same proportion as the non-bath there
should be
113
„
Therefore a correction of 11 is needed.
But the recoveries among these 11 would only amount to 1 or 2.
Therefore we should have 565+11 cases and 114+1 [or 2] recoveries.
This correction for 576 cases brings the recovery rate to 20'1 per cent. Hence
it appears that the correction for sex amounts to less than 1 per cent., and as the defi-
nition of a moribund case is quite arbitrary, such a small correction is of little
moment.
(The Medical Officer at the Maratha Hospital, however, tells me that during the
whole year females did not die so frequently as males. If then the Bath had too few
the Bath has been unfairly treated ; but the actual Bath figures give a very different
result. The inference ?s that females are unsuited to the Bath and this is the personal
experience of my assistant, Mr. Hate, the nurse and myself.)
We may therefore, as a summary to Part I, conclude that:—
(1) All methods are very unsuccessful.
(2) That the difference in mortality between the Bath and Other Methods prac-
tically does not exceed 5 per cent.
The remaining parts of the report are only of secondary importance though, per-
haps, of more interest than the first part.
Tne full Bath treatment is of two parts, firstly, the Vapour Bath in which steam
surrounds the patient excepting the head, and secondly, the Hip Bath in which the
patient sits in a bath of tepid or cold water.
There are some who are great believers in the use of the Hip Bath, but it is abso-
lutely opposed to all my ideas of what is suitable to a plague patient ; further, I, in
common with many others, firmly believe that I have seen plague cases quickly ren-
dered much worse by its use. And my own personal experience is that whenever
1 have exposed myself to similar conditions, although in good health at the time, I
have myself been the worse for such an exposure.
1 could never therefore allow myself to submit any but the earliest Bath cases
to the latter part of the treatment. Mr. Leslie attributes the difference between the
results of the first quarter and last three quarters of this investigation to the fact that
in the former the cold bath was at times used and in the latter was never used ; further
he thinks that without any drugs or other treatment at all the Bath cases would have
done better on a purely?hydropathic method of treatment.
PABT IL
An account now follows of what happens to a patient who has a vapour bath.
The first 150 odd cases had careful notes taken as to pulse and respiration, if
possibly every three minutes, and also observations upon sweating, delirium, nausea,
coughing, urination, defacation and any noteworthy occurrence. In addition a nurse
noted the pulse respiration and temperatur3 before and after the patient left the
ward. The whole proceeding as a rule lasted 45 minutes, the patient's bath commenc-
ing 9 minutes and ending about 35 minutes after the nurse had taken the