Homœopathic hospital statistics / by W.T. Gairdner.

  • Gairdner, W. T. (William Tennant), Sir, 1824-1907.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homœopathic hospital statistics / by W.T. Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    merits with the great labours of pure beneficence, of which general hospitals of this and other countries furnish exam¬ ples. Such experiments, of which the means are human sufferings and dangers, and the avowed and foregone con¬ clusion is the exaltation and triumph of a sect, surely argue anything but the charity which “is not puffed up” and “ seeketh not her own.” But, whether right or wrong, the experiment has been made, the challenge is before the public, and I am prepared to meet it by a comparison of the results of Fleischmann’s with those of other hospitals. I fix upon Fleischmann’s because it is necessary to my sense (though not probably to that “common sense” which is “quite com¬ petent to decide,” &c.) to go a little into detail; and what can be shown to be true of the Vienna experiment(the first and the most triumphantly paraded) may probably be assumed to be true of others. I shall take, then, the eight years of Fleischmann’s Hospital, from 1835 to 1843, (the results of which are given at length in the work of Drs. Drysdale and Russell, and partially in Dr. Forbes’s celebrated review,) and I shall compare them with the results of two years in the Edinburgh Infirmary (1842-3), in which the aggregate number of “ experiments ” happens nearly to coincide with that of the Vienna hospital in the eight years mentioned. The returns in Edinburgh for these years were drawn up by Dr. Peacock, now of St. Thomas’s Hospital, whose name is a guarantee at once for their business-like accuracy and their good faith, so far as these could be secured by him. Let me add, that I am guided in my selection exclusively by the circumstances above mentioned. If the Vienna General Hospital, or any other, can be shown to reverse my conclu¬ sions, I shall unquestionably feel myself bound to admit the fallacies of my argument; but in the meantime I am taking at least no unfair advantage in comparing results which have lately been declared on high homoeopathic authority, “far beyond the reach of any other known method of treatment, ” with those of the hospital which has the reputation of the most open doors, and the highest mortality in this country. In the works already referred to, the aggregate of cases in Dr. Fleischmann’s Hospital is stated at 6551 (including 27 cases remaining from 1834); deducting 50 which re¬ mained in the house at the end of 1843, the aggregate num-