To the Editor:
—I have read with interest Dr. Francis Carter Wood's article on "The Relation of Pathology to Medicine" (The Journal, Aug. 23, 1919, p. 569). I may be pardoned for having focused attention on that passage which inquires: "If the Mayo Clinic and the General Memorial Hospital of New York succeed in obtaining a permit [for necropsy] in over 90 per cent, of deaths, why does Bellevue Hospital obtain only 7 per cent, and many other institutions only from 20 to 30?"As far as Bellevue Hospital is concerned, the interrogation is misleading, without design on Dr. Wood's part, of course. I have investigated the necropsy figures of Bellevue Hospital covering the past seven years and I find that, with the exception of the chaotic period of 1918, when the percentage fell to 7.6, and the year 1915, when it dropped to 14 without any cause now recallable,