Homœopathic hospital statistics / by W.T. Gairdner.

  • William Tennant Gairdner
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homœopathic hospital statistics / by W.T. Gairdner. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    flECCCri By W. T. GAIRDNER, M.D. PATHOLOGIST AND ASSISTANT-PHYSICIAN TO THE ROYAL INFIRMARY OF EDINBURGH. I am tempted to publish some notes on the subject of homoeopathic hospital statistics, which were prepared by me six years ago for my own satisfaction, and which give, I think, a clearer view of the character of these men¬ dacious documents than anything yet published. To one practically acquainted with the mechanism of hospital statistics, the following arguments will appear superfluous ; and, indeed, I should consider them unworthy of publica¬ tion, were it not apparent that many minds have been stunned and confused by the circumstantial character of the evidence so assiduously kept before the eyes of the public by the professors of quackery, and backed by the in¬ discreet concessions of some of the avowed friends of science. Homoeopathy has, in fact, found out the soft side of the present age, and, in working up its delusive “ expe¬ rience” into the form of statistical statements, has applied itself with great dexterity to meet the requirements of that inductive and numerical method which so largely prevails, and is often so blindly followed in our science. There are still too many cultivators of medicine in all its departments, who “strain at a gnaf,” in the shape of what they call speculation or theory, but are ready to swallow any amount of doctrine which professes to be founded simply on facts; and there are not a few, with whom, especially in thera¬ peutics, a neatly elaborated statistical document is at al times sufficient to outweigh the principles and experience of centuries, if not written in hundreds, and tens, and units