On the signification of fact in medicine, and on the hurtful effects of the incautious use of such modern sources of fact as the microscope, the stethoscope, chemical analysis, statistics, &c / by Wiliam Seller.

Date:
[1848?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the signification of fact in medicine, and on the hurtful effects of the incautious use of such modern sources of fact as the microscope, the stethoscope, chemical analysis, statistics, &c / by Wiliam Seller. 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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    phthisis might occur principally between 15 and 40 in the class of persons who live comfortably, notwithstanding that it has been found to prevail almost equally throughout life among the inmates of the hospitals in the great cities of Europe. For it is to be remembered that the inmates of these hospitals are to a great extent made up of an ill-fed, half-naked, houseless population, as well as of the many artisans victimised in such cities by employments in themselves unhealthy, or by being crowded together in ill-aired, over-heated work-shops. These conditions of life cannot but have a very material influence on the frequency of a disease which owes its origin so often to a cachectic state, induced by a disregard of the precautions ne- cessary for the preservation of health. Before, then, the pro- position of Hippocrates can be justly set aside, which applied, unquestionably, to persons living somewhat comfortably, like those who insure their lives, a new statistical inquiry would be requisite, limited to the class of persons concerned in the pro- position. Though sufficient data do not at present exist to decide this point, Sir James Clark regards the proposition of Hippocrates as so far warranted even by modern statistics, that by far the largest proportion of phthisical patients are cut off between 15 and 40, though it must be confessed, that, accord- ing to the statistics on which he relies, a considerably greater proportion die of phthisis from 40 to extreme old age than be- tween 15 and 40. On the contrary, however, according to the new London tables of mortality, the deaths ascribed to phthisis are between four and five times more numerous between 15 and 40 than above 40. The examples hitherto produced have related to the use of statistics for the establishment of facts, or supposed facts of a po- sitive character. But we find statistics sometimes resorted to for a use little short of the difficult task of proving a negative. When supposed facts are put forward on insufficient grounds, mere logic has no resource but simply to affirm that these should not be received because the proof has foiled. But, un- fortunately, in medicine, there always have been many things, which, though doubtful, having been at one time received and acted on as true, require a particular refutation before they can be wholly got rid of; and though such a refutation falls, as 1 have just said, little short of proving a negative, it has been attempted by statistics. It is manifest that such a proceeding is very likely to run into error. It is, however, on evidence of this kind that many persuasions of past times are now rejected; witness the belief that marks and monstrosities in the infant at birth depend on affections of the mother’s imagination during pregnancy. The refutation here, though far from having been
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