A further inquiry into the comparative infrequency of calculous diseases among sea-faring people : with some observations on their frequency in Scotland / by Alex. Copland Hutchison.

Date:: 1830

Credit: A further inquiry into the comparative infrequency of calculous diseases among sea-faring people : with some observations on their frequency in Scotland / by Alex. Copland Hutchison. 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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$tol*, the average number of stone cases admitted into the London and provincial civil hospitals, Norwich excepted, is about one in every 400 : the Norwich hospital being one in every forty cases of {he total admissions, according to Dr. Yelloly. The Yarmouth, Peignton,and all the foreign naval hospitals were purposely kept out of my original calculations, ^as not any case of stone was then reported to have occurred in them during the period in question t. * See Mr. Richard Smith's interesting statistical paper, con- tained in the Tenth Volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Trans* actions. f I feel greatly indebted to Dr. Yelloly for the manner in which he has introduced my name into his valuable paper, in the Philosophical Transactions for 1829, and for his having ■called my attention to a case in the Yarmouth Naval Hospital, which occurred in 180S, and which ought to have appeared iu my original paper before adverted to. I cannot account for the omission in any other way than by supposing it to have been an oversight in Mr. Burke, who was the successor to Dr. Tait as surgeon of that hospital, and my correspondent on the occa- sion of these inquiries. I have, however, now traced this patient at the Navy Office. He was received into Yarmouth Hospital from L'Aimable, fri- gate.—His age was twenty years, and he was rated on the ship's books as Ordinary, which rating every naval officer very well knows, may be achieved by good conduct after being but a short time at sea; and I learn, from Dr. Yelloly > letter to me, that the stone extracted was of the mulberry species, and as large as a pullet's egg; so that the probability is that this young man entered the naval service with the disease upon him. I must here remark, however, that Dr. Yelloly has fallen into an error in quoting from my paper in the Medico-$