Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1873.djvu/104

784 and the continued residence of chronics, have now taken place for such n. length of time that the average proportion of recent and chronic cases has found its normal adjustment, and the number of recent and presumptively curable cases with which one year is begun is only equal to that which goes over to the next, it becomes a fact of very great economic and social interest and importance that the ratios of recoveries and deaths to the numbers and movements of the household of this establishment during the past year, present an approximate expression of the average curability and mortality of all the insanity, if under treatment in hospitals, that exists in our different American communities.

Near the close of the wide prevalence of smallpox in the District last autumn and winter, four cases of variolous disease occurred in the hospital. The disease was introduced into the institution by an attendant, who spent the 9th of February in Washington, and was seized with the premonitory symptoms on the 23rd. The other three cases were patients in the same ward with the attendant, who were seized on the third, fifth, and seventh days after his attack, and it is probable that he brought with him from town some infected piece of clothing or pocket article that communicated the disease to the patients before his own case had reached an infectious stage. All of the patients, officers, and employes of the institution were vaccinated between the 1st and 3d of January, and by the immediate repetition of the vaccination and the strictest isolation of the cases as they occurred, the further spread of the disease was happily prevented. Two of the cases proved to be variola in the continent form, and two the modified disease. One of the former died and the other three recovered. It is quite remarkable that in the large population of the hospital, which is constantly receiving accessions from all parts of the country, these are the only cases of variolous disease that have occurred in the institution since the close of the late war. A part of the vaccinations were made with virus direct from the cow, and a. part with humanized matter, but the results throw but little light upon the relative potency of the two kinds of virus. They are thought to be of sufficient interest, however, to justify their presentation here in a tabular form.

No suicide has occurred in the course of the year, and the gene health of the patients has been excellent.