M. Greenwood and J. W. Brown 
477 
institutions. An extremely small percentage of the results have any value at all, 
while even that residuum is not readily accessible. Comparatively little trouble 
and some expense would notably diminish the output of waste-paper and increase 
the production of valuable records. 
Hospital administrators pay little attention to the advice of private enthusiasts 
— and quite properly since compliance with requests for innovation might turn 
hospitals into happy hunting grounds for faddists of all kinds. There are we think 
but two ways in which genuine statistical reforms are likely to be brought about. 
One is through Government or Municipal action, a process which does not (if we 
may judge from the report of the recent Royal Commission on the Record Office) 
necessarily lead to the best results. The second is through the realisation on 
the part of leading physicians and surgeons of the importance which attaches 
to organised statistical data. Perhaps when consumption has been " conquered " 
and the infant death rate reduced 80°/ o , medical protagonists may be induced to 
turn their attention to a humbler but still important reform. The question is 
really of more importance than might be inferred from the subject of this paper. 
The problem with which we are immediately concerned here is not of momentous 
interest, but the difficulties under which we labour apply to all statistical investi- 
gations of a " General Hospital Population." Since every youth destined to earn 
his bread as a doctor acquires his first and therefore his most vivid impressions 
of the phenomena of disease among a "General Hospital Population," it is of 
importance to all his future patients that these impressions should be controlled, 
checked and, if possible, corrected by any available method. One such method, 
the statistical realisation of precisely what a " General Hospital Population " is, 
and how it may be presumed to differ from the nation at large, is at present 
impossible owing, in great measure, to obstacles which can be removed. This 
is now the opinion of a small minority ; if it is ever adopted by a majority, those 
who, having the means of reform at their command, neglect to adopt them will 
find some difficulty in explaining their position. 
TABLE II. 
Constants calculated from New Data (Select Gases). Healthy Organs. 
Males (25—55). 
Variable 
Mean 
Standard Deviation 
Coefficient of 
Variation 
Heart 
Body-weight ... 
Kidneys 
Liver ... 
Age 
Brain 
["Body-length"] 
11-96+ -14ozs. 
129-82 ±1-80 lbs. 
10-67 ± -16ozs. 
57-39± -86 „ 
41-27+ -66yrs. 
49-31 + -36ozs. 
[68-99 ± -20 ins.] 
1- 896 
23-605 
2- 049 
11-263 
8-632 
4-558 
[2-548] 
15-86 
18- 18 
19- 21 
19- 63 
20- 92 
9-24 
[3-69] 
Bioraetrika ix 
61 
