N. 



is 



REPORT ON THE NUMBER OF PRACTITIONERS OF 

 MEDICINE IN VIRGINIA. 



i 

 The committee appointed to correspond with the clerks of the 

 various town and county courts throughout the State, for the purpose 

 of ascertaining, as far as practicable, the number of physicians prac- 

 ticing medicine in this State, the number who practice with the author- 

 ity of a diploma, or of a license from some legally authorized society, 

 and the number who practice without any authority whatever, in the 

 performance of their duty addressed a circular letter, a copy of 

 which accompanies this report (marked N. — «.), to each of the afore- 

 said clerks. 



In reply to this circular, the committee have received communi- 

 cations from seventy-five towns and counties, which have, in the 

 main, given them information as accurate and as full as could have 

 been expected. The result of these communications the committee 

 have embodied in a tabular statement, which they beg leave to sub- 

 mit as a part of their report (see statement marked N. — b.). 



By examining this statement, it will be seen that the whole num- 

 ber of physicians in these seventy-five counties and towns is 972. — ■ 

 Now there are 119 counties in the whole State. We have received 

 information from nearly two-thirds of these ; and as the counties 

 from which we have heard are taken indiscriminately from every 

 portion of the State, it is fair to presume that the result gives us 

 pretty accurately the proportion of physicians throughout the State, 

 — The population of the State of Virginia by the last census was 

 1,239,797, two-thirds of which would be 826,5311. Dividing this 

 number by 927 (two-thirds of the physicians in the State), and we 

 arrive at the result that there is one physician for every 850J inha- 

 bitants. This calculation has been made, it is true, from the recorded 

 population of the state in 1840, while the number of physicians with 

 which that population is compared, is estimated for the present year ; 

 but it is very doubtful whether the great drain upon the population 



