6. Notwithstanding the prompt removal of the pain and reduction of the fever by the salicyl compounds, the average duration of acute articular rheumatism is not very considerably lessened by those remedies. Thus, of Hood's158 350 cases treated by salicylates the average duration of the illness was 35.95 days as against 38.75 under other methods. The average time spent in bed by Warner's 342 cases was 19.5 days under the salicylates, and by 352 patients under other remedies 23.5 days. Both estimates show a curtailment of the duration of the disease by the new treatment of three to four days only; which is not a very material improvement.
158 Calculation from Dr. Hood's Tables 1 and 1a, Lancet, ii., 1881, 1119.
7. Nor do the salicylates materially alter the time spent in hospital by rheumatic patients; some evidence indicates that they actually prolong that period. The following are the average residences in hospital under the salicylates, according to several recent authors, and they are remarkably uniform with two exceptions: Coupland, 36 days; Warner, 34.9; Hall, 34; Southey, 32.5; Broadbent, 31.2; Powell, 31; Finlay and Lucas, 29.7;159 Owen, 23; Brown, 21.9;160 or a general average of 30.4 days for the salicyl remedies. Under full alkaline treatment: Owen, 26 days; Dickinson, 25;161 Fuller, 22.2;162 Blakes, 24;163 or a general average of 24.3 days for full alkaline treatment. And if to these we add Finlay and Lucas's results, 27.7 days, under but two to three drachms of alkaline salts in the twenty-four hours—a quantity only the fourth of that given under the full alkaline method—the general average residence in hospital under alkaline treatment was but 25.4 days; that is, five less than under the salicylate.
159 Lancet, ii., 1879, 420.
160 Boston Med. and Surg. Journ., Feb., 1877. The four cases excluded by the reports are included in this calculation, that it may more fairly be compared with other reports.
161 Lancet, i., 1869.
162 The Practitioner, i., 1869, p. 137.
163 Boston City Hospital Reports, 1st Series.
These several estimates of the time spent in hospital under the salicylates, with the exception of Owen's and Brown's, correspond closely with that of the time spent by Gull's and Sutton's patients under mint-water—32.8 days—although the general average of them falls short of the latter by 2.4 days.
The following table (iii.) of Hood's164 shows that under the salicylate method 45.7 per cent. remained in hospital beyond forty days, and 39 per cent. under other methods, and that about 50 per cent. more were discharged within twenty days under the other methods than under the salicylate: