XVI.—The Weather, Influenza, and Disease: from the Records of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary for Fifty Years

Extract

In the following pages I have attempted to analyse various groups of figures derived from the records of the Royal Infirmary. When appointed Medical Registrar to the Infirmary in October 1891, it occurred to me that it might lead to interesting results if the admissions into the Medical Wards were contrasted with the varying states of the atmosphere, a sufficiently long time being taken to avoid the fallacies attendant on statistical generalisations from insufficient data. At first my intention had been to investigate the influence of the weather on the diseases of the principal systems, but as the work progressed I found that the repeated attacks of Epidemic Influenza so modified the results that I had perforce to take up the study of that disease in addition. The Infirmary year begins on the 1st of October; and, although the figures might have been calculated with some trouble for the year from the 1st of January, they have been left for the most part in their original form. The period to which most of the figures relate comprises the seven years from 1st October 1888 to 30th September 1895. Each case is noted as on admission, and each death as it occurred. Most of the figures are given as weekly totals. The year 1888–89 is included because no epidemic of Influenza occurred during it. In each of the other years epidemics were present.