Dr. Simpson took great trouble, in the early part of 1848, to collect the account of the amputations of the thigh, leg, and arm, which had been performed under the influence of ether or chloroform in forty-nine of the hospitals in Great Britain; and for comparison, he collected from thirty British hospitals the results of the same amputations, for the two or three years preceding 1847. He found that the mortality in the period preceding the use of ether was 29 per cent. in these amputations, and the return of patients whose limbs had been amputated under the use of ether and chloroform gave a mortality of 23 per cent.; and he concluded that 6 per cent. of the lives of those who had undergone these amputations had been saved by the use of these agents. In his application for an account of cases, however, Dr. Simpson merely asked for the number of cases, and the number of deaths. Nothing was said as to the time when the amputations had been performed; and there is reason to believe that a number of cases still under treatment may have been included; some of which may have ended fatally after the returns were made. The cutting part of a large amputation is of very short duration. The loss of blood is not great; and patients hardly ever died during the performance of an amputation, but some time afterwards, of diseases which ether and chloroform have not been found capable of preventing. It was therefore not to be expected that these agents should save the lives of so many as 6 per cent. of those who underwent the larger amputations. In the early part of 1849, I published an account of fifty-five amputations of the thigh, leg, and arm, in which I had administered ether or chloroform, and the mortality was 27 per cent.[141]