LOW TEMPERATURE, HIGH BAROMETER AND SUDDEN DEATH

Abstract

In a recent note in the British Medical Journal , A. O. W. 1 called attention to an apparent concurrence between the incidence of sudden deaths and high barometric pressures. The point thus raised by a casual observer was taken up by Dr. Percy Stocks 2 of the University of London, who undertook a short statistical investigation on the alleged association of deaths from failure with high barometric readings. He correlated the weekly deaths registered in London, taking deaths from diseases of the heart and circulatory system, with the mean corrected barometric pressures for the same weeks at Greenwich. He used the data for the last week of October and the four weeks of November in each of the years 1900 to 1914 and 1919 to 1925, and found a coefficient of correlation of + 0.23 ± 0.06. Dr. Stocks interpreted this correlation as indicatory of an appreciable relation between the