The Weekly Kansas chief. [volume] (Troy, Kan.) 1872-1918, 1881-04-14
Msefal aud Curious.
DIR. LOOMS ON PNEulfoNIA.
Variations as to the Rates Of Mortality
Treatment Of the Disease.

Prof. Alfred L. Loomis, of the University Med
zeal school, read at the meeting of the County
Medical Society, last evening, an interesting but
highly technical paper on the "Causation of
Acute Pneumonia'-a disease whose ravages
this winter among the higher, and particularly
among the intellectual, classes have given its
name q terrible celebrity. The initial pages of
the memoir were occupied with n statistical sur
yey and review of the activity of disease and its
comparative fatality. DIR. Loomis finds great
variation in the mortality due to the disorder as
recorded by different authorities. In the United
States Medical reports, for illustration, out of
more than sixty-one thousand cases on the record,
little over fourteen Thousand proved fatal.
The percentage Of mortality as computed from
these figures is tribe over ~ In the Confede-
rate service, on the other hand, the disease was
attended with higher ratio Of mortality, and
destroyed 81 in every hundred that il attacked.
In our civil hospitals an equally large range of
variation is observed, some records showing a
loss Of only IL cases in every 100, and others
showing loss OF - per cent. In private prac-
tice this variation is even more remarkable than
in military and civil hospitals, and some practi-
TONERS report a mortality rs low rs in every
100 cases attended, while with others the loss
rises to twice that number and more. DIR. LOOM
IS did not attempt to explain these apparently
discrepant statistical statements, but adverted
at once to the more practical aspect of his sub
iect-the question whether pneumonia is an in
fictitious disease a local inflammation its eaus-
es and stages Of progress, and the most recent
and successful modes OF treatment. Jurgenson,
writing of the disease, considers it is unques-
tionably infectious and constitutional, and not
to be classified in any manner rs q local infiam-
nation. DIR. LOOMS was not prepared to accept
this broad and sweeping statement, nor was he
prepared totally to deny it. He regarded pneu-
monia rs occupying q middle condition between
constitutional disease and local inflammation.
Like the former, it had certain constant features
such as the initiatOry chill and determinate
term, but it possessed no definable temperature
range or curve. His views appeared to be, after
discussing the opinions of current authorities
that the disease is one of blood poisoning, and
one in which the heart-failure (Which is usually
the cause of dcath) must be ascribed to the ac-
tion of such poison on the nervous centres
He noted the fact that it almost invariably
proves fatal when complicated with alcoholism
pleurisy, Brights disease, ensoearditis, all of
which tend to enfeeble the action of the heart.
DIR. Loomiss treatment of pneumonia of late
years-One that he recommend, as the most sue
cessful he has tried-has consisted principally of
the liberal hypodermic injection of morphine
during the first four days, while the process Of
pulmonary infltration in going on. Even when
stimnlants are required he still continues the
opium treatment. When the stage Of infiltration
has run its course, opium should, he thinks, be
employed sparingly, OF at least with great eau
tion.-Ner York Times.