1 Including typhus, typhoid, relapsing, and ephemeral,

2 Irregular.

3 Improper.

21 21 16.1 26.9

Improper.

One died as an out-patient; a second was discharged relieved, and was again

admitted two years after, and died.

7 Two males died the day after admission.
8 Died a few days after in St. Bartholomew's

10 One discharged for irregularity.

12 One died the day after admission.

6 Died as out-patients.

9 Died day after admission.

11 One discharged for irregularity,

General Abstract,' showing the number of persons treated for different forms of Diseases, with the Mortality in each Sex.

The statistical tables, published each year by the managers of the Royal Infirmary at Edinburgh, afford the means of comparing the practice of the Royal Free Hospital with that of the Royal Infirmary. I have therefore compiled the two following tables, which show the relative number of persons labouring under the various forms of disease in the two institutions, with the proportion per cent., and the relative mortality of each class.

1 The total number of cases included in this table does not correspond with that in the general table, as the period of time which it embraces is six months longer, and terminates in October 1849.

The above tables show that the chief difference between these two institutions consists in the much larger proportion which the class of fevers bears to the whole of the cases under treatment in the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh than in the Royal Free Hospital, and in the very much higher rate of mortality of these diseases in the former institution. Indeed, both the proportion which these cases bear to the whole of those under treatment, and their rate of mortality, is in the Royal Infirmary double that of the Free Hospital. Were the means of comparison accessible, I believe it would be found that the febrile affections do not bear a larger proportion to the whole of the cases under treatment in the other London and in the Paris hospitals, than in the Royal Free Hospital, and that the rate of mortality of these diseases is generally not higher; consequently, from this cause, the mortality of the latter institutions must be much less than that of the Royal Infirmary.

These considerations, together with the smaller proportion of female and of surgical cases in the Royal Infirmary, as before shewn, go far to explain the very much higher rate of mortality in that institution than in the various London and Paris hospitals. On analysing the statistical tables of the Royal Infirmary, it will also be seen that by 1 From the Appendix to the Report of the Managers, Eighth Series, from October 1, 1847, to October 1, 1848.

2 Including under this head typhus, typhoid, intermittent, and low remittent or relapsing fevers, with febrile affections of no specific character, commonly termed ephemera or febricula.

3 Exclusive of cholera epidemica.

4 Exclusive of diseases of the bladder, urethra, etc. 5 Including the eruptive fevers.

far the largest proportion of cases of fever there treated are cases of typhus. Thus, of the 4,819 cases treated during 1848, 4,694 were cases of typhus; 101 cases of febricula; 3 of dothinenteritis, or typhoid; and 21 of intermittent fever; while of the 313 cases of fever treated in the Royal Free Hospital, during the three years here reported upon, 44 were cases of intermittent fever, a very large proportion were cases of typhoid, remittent or relapsing, or ephemeral fever, and but very few cases of true typhus occurred. At present, however, I am not able to give the proportions of these several forms of disease; though, should leisure permit, I shall hope to do so hereafter.

THE USE OF THE THYMUS GLAND:

AN ORIGINAL THEORY, WITH EXPLANATORY REMARKS.

By HENRY G. WRIGHT, M.D.

THEORY.

1. AT the period of evolution of the human foetus, the upper portion of the body is developed to a very considerably greater extent than the lower, as, during intra-uterine life, the former alone is required for the purposes of existence.

11. After birth, these hypo-developed portions of the frame (namely, lower extremities) take on a rapid genesis, to bring them to the comparative standard required for the fulfilment of their presently-to-beallotted duties; this period of increase, during which they grow with greater rapidity than the rest of the body, extending over about the first two years of mundane life.

III. The source of production of added portions of the human frame, from its earliest intra-uterine cellular genesis, is corpuscular: a strong hypothesis hence arises, that the corpuscular portion of that fluid which supplies animal pabulum for conversion,-videlicet, the blood, is the source of elaboration into new definite existence.

IV. The increase of the lower extremities, above referred to, goes on with greater rapidity than that of any other considerable portion of the body, in a state of health, at any one period of life; hence the amount of convertible matter required must be proportionally large, whereas no organ has yet been demonstrated as specially endowed with the power of supplying this large required amount of material. The thymus gland, I would suggest, is the organ destined for the supply of pabulum (namely, corpuscles), in order to compensate this large demand.

For the more systematic arrangement of the numerous considerations which the crude theory embraced in the foregoing paragraphs admits of, I will embody, under the following heads, those observations which appear more directly to bear upon, and elucidate, the view above proposed.