Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1955, Page 94

100
Um giktsjukur í einari føroyskari bygd
at lekja giktsjúkur við, og í Føroyum er í gerð lítil gikt=»
deild í sambandi við landssjúkrahúsið í Tórshavn. Vit hava
tí orsøk til at halda, at framtíðin man fara at vera ikki
lítið ljósari enn tíðin ið farin er.
SUMMARY
The Faroes lie in the North Atlantic. Tórshavn, the capital and
virtually the geographic centre of the islands, has an annual mean
rainfall of 1461 mm and 970 hours of sunshine yearly. The mean
temperature in January is 3.3° C. and in July 10.8° C.
The study covers the inhabitants above the age of 15 in a village
in the medical district of Eiði and was carried out in February 1950
by the local doctor who has served in the district for 30 years. Rheum<
atism will be hardly more prevalent here than in other parts of the
Faroes. The results were collected on printed forms. Three main quess
tions were put to those examined: 1. Have you ever had rheumatic
corrplaints? If so: 2. Have you had rheumatic complaints previously?
3. Have you rheumatic complaints at present? The complaint was then
classified as either articular rheumatism with 9 subdivisions or non=°
articular rheumatic disorders with 7 subdivisions. The questions were
followed by a medical examination.
There were all told 205 inhabitants in the village in February 1950,
of whom 140 were over 15. Of these 12 were absent from home, the
remaining 128 (68 males, 60 females) were involved in the investigation.
29 persons (23 °/o of the total) had never had rheumatic complaints,
while 99 (77 °/o) either had or had had these complaints and 57 (45 °/o)
were actually suffering from rheumatic disorders at the time of the
enquiry. 26 of the 99 had or had had articular rheumatic diseases,
19 articular rheumatic diseases as well as non=articular rheumatism, 54
non»articular rheumatism only. The knee joint was by far commoner
as the seat of the trouble than were the other joints, while in the case
of nonsarticular rheumatism the shoulders and loins were the most
affected parts.
The number of cases found in this investigation in the Faroes is
nearly twice as large as that found in similar though much more wide=
spread investigations held in England, Holland, and Denmark. Nat*
urally one must take into some account the smallness of the area
covered and also the fact that the investigator himself possessed an
intimate knowledge of the persons in the village concerned, a know»
ledge based on the experience of very many years service there.