Source of "better than 50/50 chance of being cured or improved"?

[Joel S. Berson]

Thanks, Stephen.  In the meantime, the doctors on the other list have
come up (using books! actual books!) with several articles
attributing the statement to Henderson, but, like "three kinds of
lies", I think no final primary source.

Joel

At 9/13/2008 08:38 AM, Stephen Goranson wrote:
>Try (for "somewhere between 1910-1912 in this country, a random patient...had,
>for the first time in the history of mankind, a better than fifty-fifty chance
>of profiting from the encounter")
>said to be quoted in Herman L. Blumgart in "Caring for the Patient,"
>New England
>J. of Medicine, v. 270 (1964) p. 449.
>
>Stephen Goranson
>http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
>
>
>Quoting "Joel S. Berson" <Berson at ATT.NET>:
>
>>Can anyone (Fred?) identify the source of this quotation?
>>
>>A correspondent asks
>>
>>>I am trying to identify the author and a quote attributed to
>>>him.  It involves something about it being at the beginning of the
>>>twentieth century (other time?) when for the first time a patient
>>>could enter a hospital and then emerge with a better than 50/50
>>>chance of being cured or improved.  I think the source might be
>>>Lewis Thomas but I am not sure.  Can any of you stalwarts out there
>>>help me with the exact quote and its source?
>>
>>It appears to be Harvard biochemist Lawrence J. Henderson, who put
>>the year as 1912, and the exact quotation may be "... for the first
>>time in human history, a random patient with a random disease
>>consulting a doctor chosen at random stands a better than 50/50
>>chance of benefitting from the encounter."  (Turned up with some Googling.)
>>
>>But I don't have the primary source, or its date.
>>
>>Joel
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org