The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1881-10-22
The smallpox Hospital Statistics.


We have been favored by DIR. c. T. Rodgers
with copies Of the tables which we publish
below, in which the statistics of smallpox
cases treated at the hospital on the reef, and Of
the mortality among the patients, are grouped
together in an interesting manner. These tables
form part Of q report on the late epidemic,
which, at the request of Consul Mckinley, DR..
Rodgers, has prepared for transmission to the
National Board of Health of the United States.
They give a classification of the patients by
nationality, sex, and age, and show the per-
centage Of deaths which occurred in each class.
They make manifest several points of much in
terest. The per centage Of deaths among
Chinese patients was only half as great as
among Hawaiians, although many very bad cases
came to the hospital from the crowded vessels in
which Chinese coolies were imported here.
Whether this is the result of racial peculiarities
or OF the difficulty experienced in persuading
the natives OF this country to submit to proper
treatment, it is impossible to say, but probably,
both causes have combined, The number Of
cases among white foreigners was too small to
make the percentage of deaths of much value.
One of the four who died committed suicide
during delirium another was an infant two
weeks old whilst Il third died from disease
developed during conyalescence. Looking at the
general death rate, when all the patients are
taken together, il is noticeable that the percentage
OF recoveries among patients between ten and
twenty years of age was very much greater than
among either men or women between twenty or
forty. This ought not to have been the case,
judging from the statistics of other countries,
and points to the inference that if the natives
are not SO robust as they should be at the age
when they ought to be at the prime of life, it is
not altogether any racial characteristic which Is
the cause of it. 1t will be noticed that the
mortality among women was greatest, between
the ages of twenty and forty, and was only about
the general average in those who were older. On
the other hand the chief mortality among the
men was shown, where it might have been ex-
pected, amongst those above forty years of age.
Another striking fact which we learn from DIR.
Rodgers, though it is not brought out in these
tables, is the marked difference in the death
rate between the cases brought from shore and
those who broke out in the premises. When DR..
Rodgers took charge of the hospital, FIVE weeks
after the disease became epidemic, he found
that no record had been kept by which it was
possible to distinguish the one class of cases
from the other. He therefore directed that all
cases breaking out on the hospital grounds from
that time, should be so designated. They were
found to number f~ifty-four, of whom IS or 24'07 per
cent. died, while among the other 521 patients who
make up the total number treated in the hospi-
tai, the deaths were 1873, or 36.OS per cent. The
patients who broke out at the hospital were
moreover, all natives. If from those brought
to the hospital with the disease, we deduct the
Whites anu Onluallan ana CONNIE the cOInparl-
son to the 454 patients of the same race, the
contrast becomes still more striking the morta-
lily among those brought from outside being 3S.77
per cent. against e4'07 per cent. of those break
ing out on the premises, an excess of more than
so per cent. This striking difference must be
attributed mainly to two causes:-First, the
fatigue and exposure incident to removal, some
times for a distance of several miles; sometimes
in bad weather and at critical stages of the
disease as the advantage of having the
cases under intelligent supervision and control
from the outset and thus preventing during the
earlier stages of the disease, the adoption by
ignorant people, of measures calculated to i'm
peril the lives of the patients. Those who were
fortunate enough to be in the hospital from the
commencement of the attack, were also pro-
tected in the main from the devices of the native
&" kahunas," to whose operations a considerable
number of deaths during the late epidemic,
must certainly be attributed.
1t is understood that the Board of Health
have caused to be prepared statistics of the
whole number of cases which occurred during
the epidemic, about a third of which were not
treated at the hospital, many indeed not being
discovered until the death of the unfortunate
patients rendered further concealment impossible.
We trust that it will not be long before these
statistics are placed at the disposal of the
press for publication and omment