( 2 )
3. The above figures show a satisfactory increase of 25,287 in the number
of out-door patients treated and of 155 in their daily average attendance. This
increase is distributed over all the institutions, excepting the Medical College
Hospital, the Chandney Hospital, and the Howrah General Hospital, and is said to
be due partly to the inclusion for the first time of the statistics of the Dufferin
Victoria Hospital, and partly to the increased prevalence of fever and bowel-com-
p l a i n t s , w h i l e i t c e r t a i n l y p o i n t s t o t h e g r o w i n g p o p u l a r i t y o f t h e o u t - d o o r d e p a r t -
ments of the several institutions. The out-door ward of the Campbell Hospital,
opened in January 1892, to the efficiency of which the Inspector-General of Civil
Hospitals bears testimony, has drawn away some of the patients who used
formerly to attend the Medical College Hospital, but the decrease of 569 in
the attendance at that institution was due to a temporary cause only. The
decrease in the Howrah General Hospital was very small, while that in the
Chandney Hospital was due to the fact that the admissions in the previous
year had been abnormally large, owing to a severe epidemic of influenza
in that neighbourhood.
4. The total number of in-door patients rose from 25,211 to 26,058.
The increase occurred chiefly in the Police Hospital, the Campbell Hospital, and
the Mayo Hospital, and is attributed to climatic causes, and to the high prices
of food which tell chiefly on the poorer classes. Moreover, the Mayo Hospital
was open for the whole of 1893, whereas it was closed for two months in 1892,
and the figures for the Dufferin Hospital for women have been included for the
first time. The large decrease in the Presidency and Howrah General Hospitals,
which is observed chiefly in the numbers of Europeans, appears to be due to the
better general health of the population in the port, since with a daily population
i n 1893, whi ch was onl y 21/ 2 per cent . bel ow t hat of 1892, t he admi s s i ons t o
hospital were 25 per cent. less than in the former year.
5. Of the total number of patients, both in-door and out-door, treated in
all the hospitals, 167,092 were adult males, 45,290 adult females, and 65,735
children. The corresponding figures for the previous year were 154,492,
37,707, and 59,784. There was thus an increase of 26,134 in the patients of
both sexes. Of these patients, 49 .06 per cent. were Hindus, next in order
coming the Muhammadans, 32 .61, the Eurasians 10.88, and the Europeans 3.002,
The number of Europeans who sought relief in the hospitals fell from 9,233 to
8,351, owing partly to fewer sailors having visited the port, as has been stated,
but chiefly to an improvement in their general health.
6. The death-rate among the inmates of the medical institutions was
almost the same as that of the previous year, being 12 .8, against 12 .7 per cent.
The proportion of deaths in the different hospitals, however, varies consider-
ably, and the remarks of the Inspector-General of Civil Hospitals are so much to
the point that they are quoted below :—
" Hospital statistics are the most misleading in the world, unless all the circumstances of
each hospital are known. The nature and importance of the cases treated, the proportion of
medical to surgical cases, the condition of the patients on admission, the admission or exclu-
sion of particular diseases such as the exanthematous fevers, venereal diseases, eye cases, &c.,
are all important factors in the death-rate. Some of the finest and best managed modern
hospitals have very high death-rates, and some of the worst and oldest, low ones ; but the
first take in by preference all cases whose need is greatest, while the others exclude all infecti-
ous or apparently moribund cases. At Sealdah and Howrah no patients are refused, and
large numbers of dying persons picked up by the police are brought to each, while the majority
of the patients are of the very poorest classes, living under the worst sanitary conditions. At
the Chandney Hospital very few moribunds are admitted, and many of the in-patients are
persons suffering from slight injuries. The female patients at the Presidency General Hospital
are for the most part Europeans and Eurasians in fairly easy circumstances, admitting of no
comparison with those treated at Sealdah or Howrah."
The mortality among adult males increased from 11 .94 to 12 .07, and that
among female children from 9 .81 to 14.78. An increase in the figures at
Howrah is due to a great influx of pilgrims returning from Puri, many of whom
were moribund from dysentery and diarrhœa when admitted.
'T. The number of small-pox cases in Calcutta, all of which are now sent
to the small-pox wards of the Campbell Hospital at Sealdah, rose from 35 to 49,
of which 13 proved fatal, giving a death-rate of 26 .53. It is noticeable that
in only 13 of these cases were the patients said to have been vaccinated, and in
9 of them the vaccinal scars were indistinct. Among those who had been
vaccinated, but who bore only indistinct marks of the operation, there were three