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general interest to the profession, as "well as of improvements in 

 practice, expecting by this means to obtain facts and statistical data, 

 which, when arranged and classified, might lead to interesting con- 

 clusions. So little, however, has been communicated to them, as not 

 to be available for the purposes originally contemplated. Your com- 

 mittee cannot here withhold the expression of a hope that the future 

 Surgical Reports to this Association may be made a repository for the 

 statistical results of operations and modes of treatment, and that 

 they may be more freely communicated than has yet been done. 



It is only by collecting together a large number of facts that 

 general conclusions at all approaching to accuracy can be attained, 

 in addition to which, when drawn from the several sections of our 

 widely extended country, as they might readily be, through the 

 medium of a society such as this, they would allow of a comparison 

 of the methods of treatment pursued by different practitioners and 

 institutions, and might shed much light upon the effects of climate, 

 as well as point out the greater or less frequency of particular sur- 

 gical diseases in various localities. 



To arrive, however, at accurate results from statistics, not only 

 the records of several consecutive years are required, but they must 

 also include all the cases of the disease, or operation treated of, 

 which occur in the practice of the institution or surgeon, from which 

 they emanate. They would specify the subjects of fractures and 

 luxations, of amputations, of operations for stone, aneurism, cancer, 

 hernia and cataract, as particularly worthy of statistical investiga- 

 tion. 



Among the subjects of inquiry, which presented themselves to the 

 committee, none appeared to them more worthy of present attention 

 than those of lithotomy and lithotrity; for, in addition to their 

 practical bearing, it seems to be peculiarly fit at this time, when the 

 attention of our brethren in Europe is again awakened to them, as 

 it has been by the recent discussion of their merits and faults, in a 

 learned body in Paris, that some account of the results of opera- 

 tions done for the relief of stone in the United States should be 

 made known. 



The causes which give rise to stone, and the relative frequency or 

 rarity with which it is found in the different parts of our continent, 

 are matters of much interest, and endeavours were made to gain 

 intelligence for this report in regard to them, hoping thereby that 

 something might be elicited to explain the probable local causes of 

 its production. In this, however, they have been disappointed, and 



