STATISTICS. 



803 



appear that a counter experience of the same 

 kind was continually leading to its disuse. 

 Thus Morgagni tells us that, when he was 

 quite a young man and went to Bologna, both 

 methods of using mercury, internal and ex- 

 ternal, were so far deserted, that he never saw 

 any physician make use of them, or ever 

 heard of his using them, for the whole space 

 of eight years, during which he studied there.* 

 It would also appear that from the beginning 

 of the sixteenth century up to the present time, 

 there has always been a large number of sur- 

 geons, who have either abandoned the mer- 

 curial treatment altogether, or have restricted 

 the use of the mineral to certain exceptional 

 cases.f In the difference of opinion which 

 prevailed upon this subject, the necessity of 

 submitting the question at issue to the test of 

 figures made itself so strongly felt, that a series 

 of the most elaborate inquiries was undertaken 

 at the instigation of governments, or by private 

 individuals. These inquiries resulted in the 

 collection of nearly 80,000 facts, by means of 

 which the possibility of promptly healing ve- 

 nereal sores without mercury and with but 

 moderate risk of a relapse, or of the occurrence 

 of secondary symptoms, was conclusively esta- 

 blished.;}: To this same test of figures, all the 

 questions which arise from time to time, as to 

 the relative value of the several remedies recom- 

 mended in the treatment of s} r philis are, by 

 common consent, submitted. A most con- 

 vincing proof that the numerical method is, in 

 all cases of doubt and difficulty, the means of 

 solution to which men naturally resort, is af- 

 forded by the treatise of Benjamin Bell, on this 

 very subject, published in the year 1793. 

 Speaking of the treatment of incipient chancres 

 by caustic, he notices the very important ob- 

 jection, that the cure of the sores was often 

 succeeded by buboes ; and he adds, that for 

 a considerable time he was induced to suppose 

 that the swellings of the glands, which thus 

 take place after the cure of chancres, were 

 more the effect of accident than of the method 

 of treatment, and that they would have oc- 

 curred under whatever management the sores 

 might have been. The frequency, however, 

 of their appearance, led him at last to suspect 

 that he was mistaken, and further observation 

 made it obvious that this was the case. He 

 goes on to observe, " As experiment alone 

 could determine the question, I was resolved 

 to employ this test. Of the first twenty 

 patients who occurred with incipient chancres, 

 in ten they were destroyed by an immediate 

 and effectual application of lunar caustic, the 

 remedy being employed, according to my usual 

 custom at that time, instantly on my being 

 called ; of the other ten, five were dressed with 

 blue mercurial ointment, and five with common 

 wax ointment. The sores to which caustic 



* Morgagni's 58th Epistle. 



t See on this subject, the British and Foreign 

 Medical Review, vol. v. p. 4. 



+ British and Foreign Medical Review, vol. v. 

 p. 7. 



A Treatise on Gonorrhoea Virulenta, and Lues 

 Venerea. By Benjamin Bell, vol. ii. p. 322. 



were applied healed much sooner than the 

 others, and next to them the sores that were 

 dressed with mercurial ointment. But of the 

 ten patients to whom caustic was applied, no 

 less than eight had buboes, whilst only one 

 bubo occurred in all the others ; and it happened 

 in one of the patients whose chancres had 

 been dressed with mercury. I thought also 

 that buboes appeared to be less frequent from 

 the application of caustic, where mercury had 

 been previously given. This fell within my ob- 

 servation from time to time, with patients who 

 had taken mercury, either of their own-accord 

 or by the advice of others ; and appearing to be 

 of importance, I was resolved to bring it like- 

 wise to the test of experiment, and the result 

 was as follows : of forty-eight patients with 

 chancres in an incipient state, and exactly as 

 they occurred in practice, one half was treated 

 in the manner I have mentioned, by destroy- 

 ing the chancres with caustic immediately on 

 my being desired to see them, while all the 

 others were put under mercury for eight or 

 ten days before the application of caustic. In 

 every other circumstance the method of treat- 

 ment was the same. The difference, however, 

 surprised me exceedingly. Of the twenty-four 

 treated with the immediate application of 

 caustic, twenty wereseixed with buboes; while 

 only three buboes occurred in an equal number 

 to whom mercury had been previously admin- 

 istered." 



The subject of the treatment of syphilis 

 has been selected for illustration on account 

 of the large use which has been made of 

 figures in discussing the relative value of the 

 two modes of treatment; and the extract from 

 the works of Benjamin Bell as a proof that, 

 long anterior to any discussions among me- 

 dical men as to the value of the numerical 

 method and the extent to which it might be 

 applied in the solution of medical questions, 

 men of shrewd common sense were driven to 

 the use of numbers, as the natural and only 

 means of solving difficult questions, and set- 

 ting doubtful or disputed points at rest. Thus 

 much, by way of introduction, the difference 

 of opinion which prevails as to the value of 

 the numerical method seemed to demand. 



The numerical or statistical method may be 

 defined as the science which prescribes rules 

 for the bringing together of scattered observ- 

 ations, arranging them in classes, testing their 

 sufficiency in point of number, and deducing 

 from them, when so arranged, average and 

 extreme results, fitted by their very condensa- 

 tion to become standards of comparison and 

 data for reasoning. 



The numerical method*, so defined and 



* The term, numerical method, will be used 

 throughout this article in preference to the word 

 statistics, or statistical method ; for, properly speak- 

 ing, statistics means the science of states (from the 

 .German word staat, a state), and is therefore syno- 

 nymous with the terms " political economy," " po- 

 litical science," " social science." The first use of 

 the term statistics has been traced to Achemval, 

 Professor of History in Gottingen, who, in 1749, 

 published an historical work, in which the phrase 

 scientia statistica occurs for the first time. The use 

 3 F 2 



