Some remarks on the value and necessity of the numerical or statistical method of inquiry as applied to various questions in operative surgery / by J.Y. Simpson.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Some remarks on the value and necessity of the numerical or statistical method of inquiry as applied to various questions in operative surgery / 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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    No. II.—Table of Absolute number of Deaths annually in England and Wales from twelve different Diseases or Causes of Death. Causes of Death. No. Dying in 1838. No. Dying in 1839. No. Dying in 1840. No. Dying in 1841. No. Dying in 1842. Jaundice, .... Apoplexy, .... 44do 841 5630 4192 800 5293 4336 875 5451 4177 864 5581 4457 952 5361 Tetanus, .... Carbuncle, .... oU7 129 35 474 122 38 480 142 33 475 118 28 629 118 40 Childbirth, . . . Malformations, . . Ovarian Dropsy, . . 2811 166 45 2915 214 34 2989 211 43 3007 206 44 2687 217 52 Violent Deaths, . . 11,727 11,632 11,594 11,100 11,092 The regularity with which the same disease thus destroys, in successive years, nearly the same number of individuals, may appear remarkable to those who have not given attention to the study of medical statistics, and who have, consequently, not marked the fixed and determinate nature of the results which this means of investiga- tion always elicits, when it is enabled to work upon a sufficiently large basis of facts, or a sufficiently large series of data. But this constancy appears, if possible, still more singular, when we turn to such a sub- ject as that included mider the last column in the table, y\z. \ao- lent deaths. Under this head are included deaths by mechanical injuries, by chemical injuries, by asphyxia, &c., and, if the returns were more specific, it would no doubt be found that the number of violent deaths from each separate division of causes was annually nearly the same. Even causes originating in jjassions of the human mind, and leading to violent death by mm-der, are, cceteris paribus, repeated in nearly the same number in each successive year. The moral man is subject to laws as fixed as the physical man. Some years ago, Quetelet showed fi-om the comparison of the annual number of deaths in Paris, and the annual number of crimes com- mitted throughout France, that the statistics of human crime are as fixed as the statistics of human mortality ; that each age paid as imiform and constant a tribute to the jail as it paid to the tomb ; that the numbers of any specific crime in successive years was, hke the numbers of deaths from any specific disease in successive yeai's, always nearly the same ; ay, that the very instruments by which the saine crime (as murder) was perpetrated in different years, were always in nearly the same proportion.^ 1 If all human actions could be registered, says Quetelet, it might be Bupposed that their numbexs would vary from year to year as widely as human