An inquiry into the average mortality in lithotomy cases : with a few remarks on the operation of lithotrity / by Alexander Miller.

  • Miller, Alexander, 1808?-1846.
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An inquiry into the average mortality in lithotomy cases : with a few remarks on the operation of lithotrity / by Alexander Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    trivial the reasons may be, which are sometime! given with respect to the fatality of such case} in the reports of operations, this course is infinitely preferable to their total omission, of which fault I fear, it will not be easy altogether to exonerate the lithotomists of this or of any other day. When we consider the sources of information regarding the average fatality in lithotomy casesj we readily enough discover that these are two, viz. the result of private and of public practice. In so important a matter as this, it is with regret and reluctance that 1 feel it necessary to decline putting any reliance upon the documents furnished by the private practitioner, as being the result ofi his private practice ; neither shall I enter here upon the reasons that have determined me to da so, as they will no doubt suggest themselves in abundance to the reader of the present Essay. Your most excellent fellow-member, the late Dr Brown, in his admirable critical inquiry into the efficacy of physic and of physicians in shortening the duration of fever, admitted, if I remember right, into that inquiry the records of public practice only, wisely calculating that such docu- ments alone could afford correct materials for drawing legitimate conclusions. Confining my- self, therefore, altogether, or nearly so, to hospitals,