Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1910-01-30

are obvious enough when ones atten- ton is called to them. It is only natural that there should be more cases of heat prostration in summer and of exhaustion from exposure in winter. It is also plain that the liability to certain kinds of accident. such as falls or injuries from flying objects, is greater in time of storm or hiah winds than in fine weather. But the causes which regulate other variations are less patent at first glance. Why, for instance, should there be more eases of alcoholism requiring hospital treatment in cold weather than in warm? Or why should injury from burns be more frequent ill summer than winter. when the chances of contact with fires aud lights are obviously ereat- CT in the cold weather months2 The prevailing method of celebrating Am eric2,s national holiday might ac- count for July's leadership in this particular kind of cases, but the fact is that July is not distinguished in this respect over the other summer months, when there is no such gen. eral practice of risking ones chances for ripe old age by playing with Sun-poWder and other like agencies of sudden destruction.
 These are some of the conundrums which are suggested as a result of compilation of ambulance records for , the current year recently made at the Flower Hospital, New York's leading homeopathic institution. That institution is in a particularly favor able position to make the showing from such an inquiry representative, since it handles about one in ten of all the ambulance cases which occur In the city of New York, while it's district includes all the strata of city life from crowded tenement quarters to the residences of the multi-million- " Ho "olh Has resulted III d1S- closing some peculiar features of New 1ork's annual accident record besides those already mentioned
 The great majority of cases in which the service of the ambulance are called for are, of course. those of injuries due to accident of various kinds. From the hospital point of
 view those cases fall mostly into the category in which are listed lac eratlons, bruises, sprains, fractures, and the like. The hospital records show that of the 1873 cases of all kinds entered upon it's ambulance books during the eeven-month per ! lod under consideration, 1,797 be- longed in this classification, per centage of almost exactly two in five. These injuries came from all sorts of causes and include every degree of seriousness from a mere skin abra- sion to broken backs and fractured skulls. The most suggestive feature about cases of this kind is the in- crease in their proportion to the to- tai number of cases shown by the re- cords to have taken place from April to october, The peculiar thing about this increase was that it was pro- pressive' each month showing a gain over the one before, while the total number of cases varied from month 10 month, being lowest in May and highest in August. July, curiously enough, showed a record of cases of this nature only slightly above the average.
 Next to accident cases as a steady source of hospital supply are those Of alcoholism. These, as already re- marked, are more numerous in winter than in summer condition which hospital authorities explain on the crcund that cold weather drives per sons, especially those who have to be much out of doors, to a freer use of 7timulants than does warmer temp- orature. This diagnosis appears to be borne out by the records, which show that of the 466 alcoholic cases entered at Flower Hospital from Jan- uary to December, the largest per