To Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, in reply to his letter to Dr. Collins, on the "Duration of labour as a cause of mortality and danger to mother and infant" : second letter / by Robert Collins, M.D.

  • Collins, Robert, 1801-1868.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, in reply to his letter to Dr. Collins, on the "Duration of labour as a cause of mortality and danger to mother and infant" : second letter / by Robert Collins, M.D. 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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    (puerperal fever not included) See Monthly Journal for Nov, 1848. What do we find in the report referred to ? This simple fact: that of 374 patients delivered in two years, m the Maternity Hospital, under your care, seven mothers died, or 1 in 53|^; all the other deliveries were out patients ! ! So much for that report. I have, however, accidentally found another from the same Institution, under your care, in the June number of the same journal for 1847> page 934, made by you to the Medico-Chirurgical Society of Edinburgh, to which no reference was made. It is extremely brief—namely, Re- port of the instrumental deliveries in the St. John-street Ma- ternity Hospital, by Professor Simpson. The deliveries in two years amounted to 1,400: one owt of every twenty-one mothers died !! The forceps were used three times, the crotchet once.'' This exactly amounts to the mortality which I reported under Professor Hamilton, which occurred a quarter of a cen- tury ago ; so that there is not a shade of improvement—nay, it is, in reality, nearly double Professor Hamilton's frightful mortality, as his patients were delivered m the hospital, whereas a very large proportion of the 1,400 must have been out pa- tients (although no distinction is made), in whom I have clearly shown the mortality is usually about one-half. Any comment from me could add nothing to the force of these reports. The results having been withheld, however, when commenting so fully on mine^ reminds me of your countryman's sage advice— Aye free, aff han' your story tell, When wi' a bosom crony ; But still keep something to yoursel', Ye scarcely tell to ony.' ' Conceal yoursel' as weel's you can^ Frae'critical dissection J But keek through ev'ry other man, Wi'sharpen'd slee inspection. In your letter you state, in reply to my remark on the excessive mortality of one in twenty-one in the Edinburgh Hospital, under the late Professor Hamilton, you know that this high mortality arose from the prevalence of puerperal fever. I beg to say, that Dr. Hamilton positively declared thsit not one case of puerperal fever occurred in the period stated See the late Dr. Mackintosh's Essay, published in a2