Obstetrical statistics, &c : a second letter in reply to Dr. Collins, President of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Ireland, &c., &c., &c. / by J.Y. Simpson.
- James Young Simpson
- Date:
- 1848
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Obstetrical statistics, &c : a second letter in reply to Dr. Collins, President of the King and Queen's College of Physicians, Ireland, &c., &c., &c. / by J.Y. Simpson. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.
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![above referred, you say the comparison of your practice with Dr Hamilton's is like the comparison of light with darkness; seeing that in the Edinburgh Hospital in 1821 and 1822, 1 in 21 died, &c.* I have above shown you, that the mortality was 1 in 80; and in my former letter to you, I stated that, under the same circumstances, viz., the prevalence of epidemic puerperal fever, in one year, (1826,) when you acted in the Dublin Hospital, partly as Assistant Physician, and partly as Master, 81 out of 2440 women delivered, died, or 1 mother in every 31 /' In your last Letter you do not gainsay the fact of this high mortality in that year; and you further confess, that you acted as Master from November 1826 ; but you aver that it is contrary to the fact, that you were Assistant Physician in the earlier part of that year. It is a matter, as you must be aware, of little, or indeed of no moment, so far as regards the main question, viz. the mortality in the Hospital under puerperal fever at that time. But I made the statement in consequence of your having pub- lished in 1836 the following remark in the Preface to your Practical Treatise:—These opinions [the strik- ingly small mortality from protracted labour, &c.] I can, (you say,) with truth state, have not been rashly formed; on the contrary, they are the result of an anxious and dili- gent attention to the duties of my office, as Assistant and Master in an Hospital where I resided for a 'period of ten years, commencing February 1822, during which time, 24,119 deliveries occurred.—{Preface, p. 2.) 4. You observe— Professor Simpson states, that he thinks he sent me a report of the Edinburgh Hospital, which I never even heard of. • The difference in practice [between me (Dr Collins) and Dr Hamil- ton,] is truly remarkable, and the familiar comparison of light with darkness \B very appropriated—Dublin Journal for 1838, p. 320. In this extract, I beg to state that I have left the italics exactly as Dr Collins himself ori- ginally printed them.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21475222_0010.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
