A 15-year follow-up of 140 patients who had transient cerebral ischemic attacks and were first seen at the Mayo Clinic for this complaint in 1950 through 1954 is reported. There was no significant difference in mortality related to sex or location of residence. Patients hypertensive at onset of symptoms had no significant increase in mortality compared to normotensive patients but the survival trend favored normotensive patients. Probability of surviving 15 years was significantly less than expected for patients less than 65 years old. Patients who were 65 or older at their first attack had a survival similar to that of the standard population. The difference between the expected and observed 15-year survivals for patients with primarily motor symptoms was about the same as that difference for patients with primarily sensory symptoms. Information concerning stroke occurrence was incomplete but 37% of local residents are known to have had a stroke, a higher rate than expected. Among patients who died during this study, 50% died of a cardiac cause and 36% died of a stroke.

This study is based on the hospital records of 1,538 people bitten by poisonous snakes during 1958 and 1959 in 10 selected states having high snakebite rates. Of these, 792 were less than 20 years of age and 746 were 20 or more years of age. Snakebite rates were highest among children 5-19 years of age. Males had higher rates than females and whites had higher rates than non-whites. Children were not found to have excessively high case-fatality rates. Ninety-five percent of the snakebites happened from April through October. Ninety-seven percent of the bites were inflicted on the extremities: 34% on the upper extremities and 63% on the lower extremities. For 1,078 cases where antivenin was administered there were three deaths—a case-fatality rate of 0.28%. These patients received insufficient doses of antivenin. In 460 cases where there was no antivenin given there were 12 deaths—a case-fatality rate of 2.61%. These differences were statistically significant. The actual doses of antivenin which produced these results are listed.

No abstract