Hospitalism : its effects on the results of surgical operations, etc. / by Sir J.Y. Simpson. Part II., 2098 country amputations, 2089 hospital amputations.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Hospitalism : its effects on the results of surgical operations, etc. / by Sir J.Y. Simpson. Part II., 2098 country amputations, 2089 hospital amputations. 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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    pared with the experienced eity surgeon, operating upon his patients in rich and magnificent hospitals—five times MORE SUCCESSFUL. In some minor amputations—and hence, I believe, in other minor operations also—the contrast is still more marked between the success of amputation in country practice and in the practice of large hospitals. In country practice, after amputation of the fore- arm, 2 died out of 377 cases, or 1 in every 188 operated on. In eleven large and metropolitan hospitals, out of 244 cases of amputation of the forearm, 40 died, or 1 in every 6 operated on. Hence, accord- ing to these data, the death-rate in hospital practice was, as com- pared with the death-rate in rural practice in this individual opera- tion, THIRTY TIMES GREATER. The tremendous differences between the two practices may, per- haps, be more pointedly and simply stated thus:— Out of 2089 amputations in hospital practice, 855 died ; Out of 2098 amputations in country practice, 226 died ; Giving an excess to hospital practice o/629 deaths. This excess, in about 2100 limb-amputations, of 629 deaths in hospital practice as compared with rural practice—in our palatial hospitals as compared with our rural villages and cottages—in large wards as compared with isolated rooms—is certainly much greater and more pronounced than I myself expected when I began the pre- sent inquiry. But must the calling of this dismal death-roll still go on unchallenged and unchecked ? Shall this pitiless and deliberate sacrifice of human life to conditions which are more or less prevent- able, be continued or arrested ? Do not these terrible figures plead eloquently and clamantly for a revision and reform of our existing hospital system ?