Observations on the nosological arrangement of the Bengal medical returns, with a few cursory remarks on medical topography and military hygiene / by Fred. J. Mouat.

Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the nosological arrangement of the Bengal medical returns, with a few cursory remarks on medical topography and military hygiene / by Fred. J. Mouat. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    the amount of error, arising from local and acci- dental causes in smaller bodies of men, is almost self evident to any one who has studied attentively the important subject of statistics. On this topic it has been justly remarked that—“ the benefit, or otherwise of any remedial measure, should be based on statistical members, or that rigorous exactness, of which mathematical calculation alone is suscepti- ble. This important science has been reserved for our own age, and promises hereafter to place our profession on a scale with the more exact sciences, and so far to remove one of its greatest opprobria, by giving its problems a certainty not hitherto possessed, and it has been justly observed elucidating “ much that is now obscure, and reducing to precision much that is now doubtful in Medical Science.” “ In fact in the statistics of Medicine, it is only in large numbers that we can place confidence, where the observations and experience of one must come in to correct those of another, and hence the importance of each individual adding his mite to the general stock.”* The reports now publishing by Major Tulloch and Mr. Marshall, are so elaborate, and detailed, and their value so great as standards of reference for future enquiries, that the lucid arrangement adopted in them should be followed as nearly as possible, in order that results obtained may be readily collated, and thus the greatest possible amount of information be elicited. The returns at present sent in from Native * Madras Medical Journal, Vol. 1, p. 178.