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
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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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    wind during the latter half of the voyage, surely that is no reason for him to arrogate to himself a knowledge of seamanship superior to all other Masters and Captains, who did not happen to meet in with the same accidentar' fair wind. If such a person should in consequence talk modestly of his nautical skill being, as compared with that of his compeers, as light with darkness, and forth- with vote to himself a laurel crown, pray, in your opi- nion, what should his compeers really think of him? I object to telling you my opinion. In your first Letter in the Provincial Journal, you de- clare the mortality in the old Edinburgh Lying-in Hospi- tal to have been unprecedented. At the time of your controversy with Dr Hamilton, Dr Moir, who acted for many years as physician in that Hospital, summed up with great care and labour the results of 2890 cases of de- livery w^ithin the Hospital, which had occurred in the course of the fourteen previous years; and with the intention of publishing them. But other duties interfered at the time with that intention; he lost interest in the question; and the papers have since lain beside him in an unfinish- ed state. He empowers me, however, to state, that among ihese 2890 cases, only 11 deaths, or about 1 in 260, occur- red from other causes than puerperal fever. There was scarcely, if indeed ever, a single year of perfect freedom from attacks of puerperal fever; and 36 of the 2890 patients died.from its effects, or about 1 in 83. Altogether, in- cluding the accidental deaths from puei-peral fever, 47 women died out of the 2890; or about ] in 61. During the same term of years 5916 of the patients of the Insti- tution were delivered out of the Hospital; of these 5916 out-patients 24 died, or 1 in every 246; and of these 24 deaths ] 4 were from puerperal fever. These cases, as I have said, occurred during fourteen years, viz. from 1823 to 1837. In your Hospital in Dublin during the same fourteen years, viz. from 1823 to 1837, (and with all your superior advantages in accommodation, in attendants, in space, in