Observations on the statistics of hernia, and on the anatomical causes which determine its production / by Robert Knox.

  • Knox, Robert, 1791-1862.
Date:
[1837]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the statistics of hernia, and on the anatomical causes which determine its production / by Robert Knox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATISTICS OF HERNIA, AND ON THE ANATOMICAL CAUSES WHICH DETERMINE ITS PRODUCTION. By ROBERT KNOX, M.D., F.R.S.E. Lecturer on Anatomy ; Corresponding member of the French Academy of Medicine; Fellow of the College of Surgeons, and of the Med. Chir. Society in Edinburgh. (Read be- fore the Medico-Chirurgical Society in Edinburgh, Session 1835-36.) (From the Edin. Med. and Surg. Journal, No. 128.^ When surgeons in extensive practice, or practical anatomists meet with a considerable number of cases of any particular dis- ease, they are naturally apt to infer that such cases must be fre- quent : that in fact, what is seen by them must likewise fall under the cognizance of others. Having seen, for example, a considerable number of hernia cases occur some years ago in Practical rooms, the inference I drew from this was, that the dis- ease must be comparatively frequent, a conclusion arrived at the more readily, that it accorded with what I had then read in va- luable works, and what I had heard from distinguished practi- cal men ; but when I endeavoured to submit to calculation what I knew, so as to ascertain the ratio of such cases to others, or to the mass of the population generally, I soon found that all the elements of a sound statistical inquiry were wanting, in so far at least as my own observations extended. Reflecting next on what I had many years ago read and seen, a suspicion arose in my mind that the statements of medical writers on the ques- tion of the frequency of hernia, the ratio of cases occurring in any class of the general population, the numbers reducible to those irreducible, &c. would not bear inquiry; and that these statements generally, would turn out when scrutinized to be mere surmises like my own; mere conjectures, in fact, either totally useless, or as when put forth pompously with the semblance, but without the fidelity of real inquiry, worse than useless, as A