RT Journal
A1 Wood F
T1 THe falling necropsy rate
JF Journal of the American Medical Association
JO Journal of the American Medical Association
YR 1919
FD December 6
VO 73
IS 23
SP 1788
OP 1788
DO 10.1001/jama.1919.02610490052029
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1919.02610490052029
AB To the Editor: 
    —The letter from Dr. Douglas Symmers in The Journal, Sept. 20, 1919, p. 929, is an interesting contribution to the subject of the falling necropsy rate and an excellent illustration of just the point which was made in my address on "The Relation of Pathology to Practice" (The Journal, Aug. 23, 1919, p. 569). I am glad to obtain the support in this matter of so well known a pathologist as Dr. Symmers, and regret that any phrase in my address seemed at all critical of the work of Bellevue Hospital, long known as one of the great institutions in this country. The use of the Bellevue statistics was merely in illustration of how low a good hospital could fall, and the facts were obtained from a letter from Dr. Symmers, in which the percentage of necropsies in 1917 is given as 11, in 1918 as "almost