Page:Memoir of Dr James Alexander (1795-1863), Wooler by his son-in-law, Sir John Struthers, 1863.pdf/7

 operations as compared with the opposite conditions. The result is certainly remarkable enough, for, with the exception of 1 of the 11 cases of strangulated hernia, and 2 cases of fistula in ano in which the patients died of phthisis, the whole of the cases  did well as far as the operations were concerned.

Mr Alexander was strongly impressed with the idea that important contributions to the statistics of practice could be made  from the experience of practitioners in the country; that the  statistics commonly founded on are from town practice, and even  there from the practice of hospitals and dispensaries, in which  many of the patients are below the average in constitution and  condition. He was fully aware of the difficulties attending the obtaining of such statistics, as distinguished from mere opinions, but thought that much might be done if an organisation could be  formed, or some machinery put in motion by the medical journals  or by the colleges or influential societies of the profession. He took an active interest, along with his respected friend Dr Charles Wilson, then of Kelso, in the Border Medical Society. In the Transactions published by the society in 1841 occurs an interesting paper by Mr Alexander, containing, besides a tabular view  of cases, 1,705 in number, treated by him in the Glendale Dispensary, some useful reflections on the prevalence of fever and  the means by which it is spread in the country, and on the  difficulties of the country practitioner.

Notwithstanding the difficulties there feelingly expressed, he managed to keep up his reading in literature and philosophy. He was especially familiar with Shakespeare and Milton, with Scott and Burns, and could quote them readily on occasion, and with much fervour and point. In philosophy he was familiar with the writings of Hume, Reid, Dugald Stewart, and Hamilton, and with  those of Locke and Butler, and he engaged eagerly in philosophical  discussion. He wrote in the Reviews occasionally, and his later writings I find were reviews of such works as Buckle's "History of Civilisation," the "Essays and Reviews," Sir Wm. Hamilton's  "Lectures on Metaphysics." The review of Dr John Brown's "Horæ Subsecivæ" in the Edinburgh Medical Journal of February 1859, which I know to be from his pen, is a good specimen of his  style. He took an active part in organising courses of lectures, and among his papers are manuscript lectures on Burns, Byron, on  the philosophy of history, &c.

He relished society keenly, and shone in it, for his