Clarksville evening chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn) 1886-1890, 1888-12-06
A DANGEROUS ENEMY.
Great Increase in tho Fatality of Pncu
Notwithstanding Statistics.

Great Increase In tho Fatality of Pncu-
Notwithstanding Statistics
There is a valuable discussion in The
Medical Record respecting a disease
which begins to be rife as the cold
weather approaches, and which is one
of the most prevalent and most dam
gerous from which this community
suffers. II is pneumonia, and the
paper is by DR.. Gouverneur NJ Smith.
Pneumonia has become dreadful
enemy to human life in this climate.
1t is also a disease from which the
mortality is increasing rather than
diminishing. The deaths from it in
New York city last year were 5,707,
and in 1886 they reached 1857. DR..
Smith does not give the number Of
cases of pneumonia reported, but
merely says that the rate of mortality
among them is high. The statistics of
the Pennsylvania hospital show that
there the mortality advanced from 81
per cent. in 1S47 to ISL per cent. in
1867, and to more than 81 per cent. in
1885, In the New York hospital the
ratio of mortality during the last ten
years is more than double what it was
III IAAO JuSO- AlllltJ VI lOIIy yOelAo oSO
the disease was regarded as serious,
but it did not at all excite the terror
which it now so reasonably awakens.
DR.. Smiths statistics show that in
New York pneumonia begins to be rife
at the opening of autumn, and that
the deaths from it steadily increase
from September until they reach their
maximum in January. April comes
next in its amount of mortality, but
the death rate continues high through
out the winter and spring and until
the warm weather of June comes in.
During the three summer months it
decreases to about one-third, but as
soon as September arrives it starts up
ward again.
Though the medical art has advanced
so greatly of recent years in l,iany di-
rections, DR.. Smith confesses that 80
far as pneumonia is concerned, science
has shriveled;" and he seems to think
that this is because the old methods of
treating the disease, ct the time when
it was less deadly, have been aban-
doned for methods moro fnical, but
less efficacious. However that may
be, the feet remains that malady
once looked upon without extraordin-
airy alarm has now become o veritable
scourge in our climate, and is deadly
far beyond other diseases to which we
are commonly subjected.
The first requisite appears to be q
"superabundance of pure air" about
the patient In pneumonia the breath
ing apparatus only partially performs
its functions, for tho diseased parts of
tho lungs are substantially useless.
"The working portion must perform
the work of two lungs for % week or
ten days, in order to maintain the
blood in proper condition to sustain
lifo;" and therefore 1.-The patient re-
quires purer cir and vastly more than
one in sound health" pure air as a
remedial agent in the management of
pneumonia and of other disorders,
both acute and chronic, has ever been
more potent ally of therapeutics than
any panacea offered by alchemy or
any hobbledehoy presented by modern
chemistry"
The discussion is of profound gen
eral interest, for the great increase in
the fatality of pneumonia is very
alarming, especially as the disease
carries Off so many in the fullness of
life and in the possession of what
otherwise seems to DO sound health
and constitutions we'll fitted to stand
out against ordinary maladies. New
York Sun.