 Admitting a shared belief in the possibility that focal sepsis might be the source of mental illness, Meyer never pressed his protégé to confront the scientific analysis of the erroneous statistics the hospital staff provided to Cotton, his silence guaranteeing continuance of the practices.Later Cotton would occasionally admit to death rates as high as 30% in his published papers.It appears that the true death rates were closer to 45% and that Cotton never fully recognized the errors his staff made in analyzing his work.