Medical statistics, their force and fallacies : a lecture delivered in Park-Street School of Medicine, November 4th, 1846, introductory to the course on the theory and practice of physic / by James F. Duncan.

  • Duncan, James F. (James Foulis), 1812-1895.
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical statistics, their force and fallacies : a lecture delivered in Park-Street School of Medicine, November 4th, 1846, introductory to the course on the theory and practice of physic / by James F. Duncan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    of mortality may be the same under various modes of treatment, and yet the value of each may be very different. One set of patients may recover sooner than another, and the exhaustion of constitution, consequent upon the attack, may be less under one system than under another. Again, the liability to relapse, and the risk of organic injury suc- ceeding the disease, may vary greatly in different hands. It is obvious, therefore, that no argument can be based upon such assertions as this, against the value of scientific medicine, while so many other important particulars re- main to be taken into account. Last winter, the official authority of one of our public hospitals, annoyed at the quantity of extras ordered by some of the physicians, called together the entire number in attendance, amounting to four, to show them a detailed statement of their expenses, and to read them a lecture on their extravagance. Having done so, he went on to say, “ Now, gentlemen, would you like to know your success,” and immediately produced the black list of fatal cases for each, made out separately. It was found that those who ordered fewest extras had the smallest number of deaths ; of the other two, one I am informed was exceedingly an- noyed, and something having been said in a joke, about publishing the comparison, got extremely angry and threat- ened him if he attempted it. The fourth, whose professional reputation might well set every statement of the kind at defiance, with great good sense observed, that so far from thinking it any imputation against his skill, he looked upon it as the highest proof of the public estimation in which he was held; as the poor, whenever their ailments assumed a serious aspect, wished to have themselves placed under his care, and hence the greater fatality, as well as the heavier expense of his cases.