More from older medical textbooks.
DIPHTHERIA
by
William P. Northrup, M.D. (1902) P.122
“Many factors must be taken into consideration in order to foretell the outcome of this disease. No other infection is so uncertain as to its results as that under consideration, the most hopeless cases often making a complete recovery, and those which we have reason to regard as most benign not infrequently causing death.”
“This has an important bearing upon prognosis, as may be seen by the following table, compiled by Burrows from a series of 2093 cases occurring at the Boston City Hospital during 1900 and 1901.
In children under five years death occurred in 21.3%; in children of from five to ten years death occurred in 8.40%; in children of from ten to fifteen years death occurred in 3.10%.”
“The following table, from Biggs and Guerard (1896), of laryngeal cases of treated with anti-toxin will show the death-rate, etc.
Total cases treated: 15,148
Deaths: 2,626”
“The occurrence of diphtheria during an epidemic of measles at the New York Foundling Hospital in the past years added greatly to the mortality of the latter disease.”