On pharmaco-therapy and preventive inoculation applied to pneumonia in the African native : with a discourse on the logical methods which ought to be employed in the evaluation of therapeutic agents / by Sir Almroth E. Wright.

  • Wright, Almroth E. (Almroth Edward), Sir, 1861-1947.
Date:
1914
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On pharmaco-therapy and preventive inoculation applied to pneumonia in the African native : with a discourse on the logical methods which ought to be employed in the evaluation of therapeutic agents / by Sir Almroth E. Wright. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

    49/146 (page 31)
    Do Considerations of Intellectual Morality prescribe that the Statistical Method should be everywhere brought into Application ? We have seen that the statistical method makes its appeal to all who look forward to the rays of the mind penetrating everywhere unhindered. The strength of that appeal lies in the fact that the statistical method is believed to provide effective safeguards against moral shortcomings on the part of the observer and evaluator —shortcomings such as a departure from impartiality ; a holding back of facts which ought to be disclosed ; and a laying claim to unwarranted authority. The statistical method does, in point of fact, offer against these certain safeguards. The observer who is blinded by intellectual, personal, or financial bias, but is constitutionally honest—and this is the type of observer against whom we have to be upon our guard—need only employ the statistical method to find himself estopped from overrating the cases which bear out his theories ; and from underrating or putting out of sight cases which have turned out inconveniently for those theories. The experiential method gives oppor- tunities for such departures from morality. It is not only against the suppressio veri, it is also against the suggestio falsi that the statistical method safeguards us. If we compel a man to set out his observa- tions in the form of a statistical table he will not, in the case where he has only a restricted experience, adopt the tone of a man who has had a wide experience. We can never feel absolutely sure that this is not being done when a man enunciates an experiential judgment. In consideration of these facts the statistical method has come to stand for certain moral ideals. It stands for the ideal of clearing one's mind of bias ; for the ideal of making a full disclosure of the facts, and submitting all one's data to the court of appeal of one's fellow-workers ;