On the fallacies of homœopathy and the imperfect statistical inquiries on which the results of that practice are estimated / by C.H.F. Routh.

  • Routh, C. H. F. (Charles Henry Felix), 1822-1909
Date:
[1852?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the fallacies of homœopathy and the imperfect statistical inquiries on which the results of that practice are estimated / by C.H.F. Routh. 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.

    51/92 (page 47)
    Section U.—3Iortality in particular Diseases. PNEUMONIA. This is perhaps the disease which of all others has made the most perverts to Homoeopathy. In the table given at length in the Appendix the following cases are recorded:— Under Homoeopathic treatment) Male and Female ] '83 .... 45 .... 5-7 p. cent., or 1 in 17 Under Allopathic do. do 1522 .... 373 .... 24-5 p. cent., or 1 in 4.' A result most favourable to homoeopathic treatment. Unfor. tunate^, however, it is not to be depended on, and much in this difference of mortality is to be explained by the relation to some of the causes before noticed, such as the variety or type of the disease, the selection of cases, the comfort of the patient m the hospital, the age, sex, &c., having particular reference to the mortality of pneumonia. _ But 1, the question presents itself, Are these cases occurring m the homeopathic hospitals genuine instances of pneumonia^ l.et us make figures speak. I find that in the two years 1848 and 1849 there were admitted into the General Hospital at Vienna 51,709 cases altogether. Of these 3,884 were cases of broncbtis, or 7-5 per cent, of the whole, and 1134 were cases of pneumoma and pleuropneumonia, or 2-1 per cent. Applyino- this test to Fleischmann's Hospital, out of 6,551 cases admitted between the years 1835 and 1843, there were only 59 cases returned as bronchitis or catarrh, or 0-8 per cent., and 300 as pneumoma, or 4-5 per cent. Curious enough, however, we have the somewhat indeterminate expression chronic cough, of which there were 130 cases and 7 deaths. Assuming these to be bronchitis, which is incorrect, this would raise the proportion of such cases admitted to 2-7 per cent. The review of these facts admits but one of two inferences; the cases are either picked out or selected, or the diagnosis is wrong. In tlie same town we should expect a similar number of cases. Taking the General Infirmary of Glasgow, the proportion of bronchitis cases out of 12,007 cases of all diseases was 423 or 3-6 per cent.; of pneu- moma 141, or M per cent, of the whole. The above conclusions seem to point out that the principal reason of the homoeopathic success is to be found in the incor-