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REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DEFENCE UNION, LIMITED.
794
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DEFENCE UNION, LIMITED.
.of the case was as follows :—"Iremoved the whole of the fractured bone, which was comminuted ; one small portion ’had penetrated the dura mater..Me has been treated just .a.s the former patient was and has not had a bad symptom since." The case was immediately recognised as one that had been reported in THE LANCET of the previous quarter as having a fatal termination through abscess of the left - frontal lobe of the brain, and Wakley appended the account ofthe post-mortem which he had printed at the time as L note to Tyrrell’s account of the case. Upon this undoubtedly libellous article an action was brought against the Editor of THELANCET and damages of £2000 were claimed. The case of Tyrrell versus Wakley came on for hearing .on Feb. 25th, 1824, before Lord Chief Justice Best (afterwards Lord Wynford) and a special jury. Mr. Serjeant Vaughan and Mr. Serjeant Adams appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. Brougham (afterwards Lord Brougham) and Mr. FitzRoy Kelly (afterwards Sir. F. Kelly) for the defendant. Mr. Serjeant Vaughan, in his opening speech, referred to the deplorable state of friction between Wakley and certain of the hospital surgeons, and attempted to show that the publication of the libel was the direct and malicious outcome of Wakley’s exclusion from St. Thomas’s Hospital by Mr. Tyrrell and his colleagues. He justified that exclusion by saying that by old Wakley had made ill use of the privilege students at St. Thomas’s Hospital of being free of the wards and lecture-rooms of the institution after they had completed their medical curriculum ; that false statements had been made by him in his paper ; and that it had therefore been thought proper by the authorities to exclude him from the hospital. Mr. Tyrrell was one of those who put his name to the paper by which Wakley was ,excluded in May, 1824 ; and from that date a series of libels - on Mr. Tyrrell could be traced to THE LANCET, ending with the one now specifically complained of, which made a most direct and bitter attack on his character. The damages were laid at .E2000, which counsel did not consider excessive having an eye to the scurrilous nature of the article and the wide circulation of the paper in which it ’appeared. Mr. Tyrrell was held up to the public in a paper whose known - circulation was over four thousand as a man who had been in the habit of publishing false statements to the world, by which it bad been imposed upon, and of attempting to raise a spurious reputation on the supposed success of his practice by publishing his unsuccessful cases without adding to his accounts their luckless terminations. The imputations were not merely of a want of talent-not merely of erorrs .of the head, but of the worst vices of the heart. Mr. Tyrrell was practically called in the article in question a thief of another’s labours and a mendacious boaster. One part of Serjeant Vaughan’s speech certainly carried weight, and that was where he dealt with Wakley’s property in the lectures. Mr. Tyrrell could not be said to have stolen from Wakley what Wakley had never legally owned-and the question of Wakley’s right in these lectures was very doubtful. Some sort of right in them had been given him by Sir Astley Cooper, but how much was an open question. Moreover, as the Abernethy case was at this very time being - considered in another court under the rather notorious circumstances already detailed, everyone felt that the - question of copyright in lectures was in an unsettled -condition and that an accusation of gross literary dishonesty founded upon any assumed settlement of that .question did not at the time come very well from Wakley. When Serjeant Vaugban said that the lectures were undoubtedly Sir Astley Cooper’s, and that he must be .allowed to do whatever he liked with them and that lie therefore was within his right in employing his nephew,
enjoyed
Mr. Tyrrell, to publish certain of them in a book with a view to correct the inaccuracies present in the reports which had appeared in THE LANCET he made a point and it was the only one he really did make. With regard to the imputation that Mr. Tyrrell had wilfully suppressed the fatal termination of the case of Thomas Denman, counsel contended that it was a gross libel. The account of the case in the book, of which the libel was in some sort a review, expressly only dealt with the condition of the patient up to a certain date, and when the man died later the fact was noted in a slip of errata pasted into all the copies.
Serjeant Vaughan called witnesses, who proved Wakley’s responsibility for whatever appeared in THE LANCET. The printer of the book testified to the fact that a correction which had to be pasted into each copy of the book was made at the earliest possible opportunity, though Mr.
he could not swear that every copy of the book that went out from his establishment was so treated. No evidence whatever was adduced that the alleged errors in THE LANCET reports, owing to which Mr. Tyrrell had been invited to publish a corrected edition of the lectures, ever existed. Not a single slip or flaw in them was ever alluded to by any witness, though the statement that Mr. Tyrrell’s assistance in the publication of the volume had been invoked as a corrective to Wakley’s inaccuracies had been much insisted upon in counsel’s opening speech.
(To be continued.)
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DEFENCE UNION, LIMITED. WE have already reported the proceedings of the annual meeting of this Union. We have now to notice its annual report. We can only congratulate the executive on a really splendid amount of success. The addition of new members is 252, bringing the total up to 3537, and the total guarantee The number of cases of members fund up to .&5212. or requiring aid, advice, assistance has been over 1000. It throws an unpleasant light on the risks of our profession that nearly one in three of its members seems to be exposed to attacks needing skilled defence. The schedule of cases given in abstract is a most interesting and instructive piece of medico-legal reading. Very satisfactory is the demonstration which the schedule aifords of the ability of this Union to meet almost every form of attack that can be devised by an unprincipled libeller. The success of the defensive action of the Union in the courts, and generally before the courts are reached, is almost monotonous, and suggests not only the ability of the executive, but the flimsy nature of the charges that are brought against the profession. The report should be circulated throughout the profession. We greatly doubt the expediency of the absorption of the Union by the British Medical Association. This would be an ignoble end of a body which has so much individuality and of which the profession has shown so much appreciation. We doubt whether this would be good for either of the bodies, though it is easy to see that a few leading members of each think so. One effect of such a fusion would be to necessitate the resignation by members of the General Medical Council of the membership of the British Medical Association. They could not continue to be members of a body that would then be practically a prosecuting body. The General Medical Council is severely handled in this report, often with some good reason ; but it is scarcely likely that the British Medical Association would like to lose from its membership those who are also members of the General Medical Council. This, however, is a matter that must be decided by the respective bodies. Two other
795
THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.
points in the report are very satisfactory-the promising stage have suspected the presence of another. and no-one could, of the negotiations for union with the London and Counties have foreseen the exact state of things. z Medical Protection Society and the continually lower Fig. 2 shows a small revolver bullet lying against the expenditure of the Union notwithstanding an ever-increasing metacarpal bone of the f orefin ger of a boy who had shot himamount of work. Outsiders as well as members will admit self a few days previously. When seen by Dr. Davidson the the wisdom of the appointment of Dr. Bateman as general position of the bullet could not be determined owing to secretary and the mere justice of giving him as salary B315 FiG. i
I
2.
year. He has worked well for the Union, and it would be unreasonable to expect him to continue his energy in its service without some such recognition.
a
THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.
someI
WE are enabled this week to lay before our readers illustrations which show very well the applications ofI Roentgen’s rays to surgery. Figs. 1 and 2 are from prints taken by Dr. McKenzie Davidson of Aberdeen. In Fig. 1 a needle had been driven into a patient’s hand, entering at the ball of the thumb, some ten months previously to her consulting a medical man. Ever since she had had more or less pain in the palm of the hand. The needle had broken on entering, for a part of it was found sticking in the table at which the patient had been working. Hence, presumably, there would be but one piece in the hand. The print, however, shows 1"IG. 1.
oedema.
The bullet had entered near the point where it was eventually found, but on probing the wound the probe passed easily down an apparent track to the styloid process of the the position of the bullet was easily deterulna. mined by the new method and it was extracted without difficulty. Dr. Davidson has used the method in three other cases. In two of them the patients were suffering from
Eventually
needles in the hands, and the third case was one of a revolvershot, also in the hand. Fig. 3 shows the hand of a patient photographed in t THE LANCET laboratory. The little nnger has been amputated, and the whole hand is much distorted by arthritis. The print is interesting as opening up possibilities for deciding on surgical procedure in talipes, for it shows, that a good view can be obtained of a distorted extremityeven when it cannot be closely applied to the plate. Fig. 4 is a very good illustration of a normal ankle-joint. The photograph was taken by Mr. Swinton, and for leave to reproduce it we are indebted to the Swan Electric Engraving-
Company.
distinctly that the needle must have broken after entering the hand, for there are two pieces lying on the ulnar side of the first metacarpal bone. This case is of great utility, for anyone on extracting the first piece would
very
hardly ’
.
We have made various t.yia;4 to obtain a photograph of the human vertebral column. but up to the present we have not succeeded. Wehave, however, taken a very good photograph through the body of a monkey (dead), into whose kidney W3 had previously insertedl uric acid calculus. a The spinal column and ribs show with great clearness, so does the calculus, although, judging by its position, it must have escaped from the kidney. It is right to add that the monkey having been.
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DEFENCE UNION, LIMITED.
.of the case was as follows :—"Iremoved the whole of the fractured bone, which was comminuted ; one small portion ’had penetrated the dura mater..Me has been treated just .a.s the former patient was and has not had a bad symptom since." The case was immediately recognised as one that had been reported in THE LANCET of the previous quarter as having a fatal termination through abscess of the left - frontal lobe of the brain, and Wakley appended the account ofthe post-mortem which he had printed at the time as L note to Tyrrell’s account of the case. Upon this undoubtedly libellous article an action was brought against the Editor of THELANCET and damages of £2000 were claimed. The case of Tyrrell versus Wakley came on for hearing .on Feb. 25th, 1824, before Lord Chief Justice Best (afterwards Lord Wynford) and a special jury. Mr. Serjeant Vaughan and Mr. Serjeant Adams appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr. Brougham (afterwards Lord Brougham) and Mr. FitzRoy Kelly (afterwards Sir. F. Kelly) for the defendant. Mr. Serjeant Vaughan, in his opening speech, referred to the deplorable state of friction between Wakley and certain of the hospital surgeons, and attempted to show that the publication of the libel was the direct and malicious outcome of Wakley’s exclusion from St. Thomas’s Hospital by Mr. Tyrrell and his colleagues. He justified that exclusion by saying that by old Wakley had made ill use of the privilege students at St. Thomas’s Hospital of being free of the wards and lecture-rooms of the institution after they had completed their medical curriculum ; that false statements had been made by him in his paper ; and that it had therefore been thought proper by the authorities to exclude him from the hospital. Mr. Tyrrell was one of those who put his name to the paper by which Wakley was ,excluded in May, 1824 ; and from that date a series of libels - on Mr. Tyrrell could be traced to THE LANCET, ending with the one now specifically complained of, which made a most direct and bitter attack on his character. The damages were laid at .E2000, which counsel did not consider excessive having an eye to the scurrilous nature of the article and the wide circulation of the paper in which it ’appeared. Mr. Tyrrell was held up to the public in a paper whose known - circulation was over four thousand as a man who had been in the habit of publishing false statements to the world, by which it bad been imposed upon, and of attempting to raise a spurious reputation on the supposed success of his practice by publishing his unsuccessful cases without adding to his accounts their luckless terminations. The imputations were not merely of a want of talent-not merely of erorrs .of the head, but of the worst vices of the heart. Mr. Tyrrell was practically called in the article in question a thief of another’s labours and a mendacious boaster. One part of Serjeant Vaughan’s speech certainly carried weight, and that was where he dealt with Wakley’s property in the lectures. Mr. Tyrrell could not be said to have stolen from Wakley what Wakley had never legally owned-and the question of Wakley’s right in these lectures was very doubtful. Some sort of right in them had been given him by Sir Astley Cooper, but how much was an open question. Moreover, as the Abernethy case was at this very time being - considered in another court under the rather notorious circumstances already detailed, everyone felt that the - question of copyright in lectures was in an unsettled -condition and that an accusation of gross literary dishonesty founded upon any assumed settlement of that .question did not at the time come very well from Wakley. When Serjeant Vaugban said that the lectures were undoubtedly Sir Astley Cooper’s, and that he must be .allowed to do whatever he liked with them and that lie therefore was within his right in employing his nephew,
enjoyed
Mr. Tyrrell, to publish certain of them in a book with a view to correct the inaccuracies present in the reports which had appeared in THE LANCET he made a point and it was the only one he really did make. With regard to the imputation that Mr. Tyrrell had wilfully suppressed the fatal termination of the case of Thomas Denman, counsel contended that it was a gross libel. The account of the case in the book, of which the libel was in some sort a review, expressly only dealt with the condition of the patient up to a certain date, and when the man died later the fact was noted in a slip of errata pasted into all the copies.
Serjeant Vaughan called witnesses, who proved Wakley’s responsibility for whatever appeared in THE LANCET. The printer of the book testified to the fact that a correction which had to be pasted into each copy of the book was made at the earliest possible opportunity, though Mr.
he could not swear that every copy of the book that went out from his establishment was so treated. No evidence whatever was adduced that the alleged errors in THE LANCET reports, owing to which Mr. Tyrrell had been invited to publish a corrected edition of the lectures, ever existed. Not a single slip or flaw in them was ever alluded to by any witness, though the statement that Mr. Tyrrell’s assistance in the publication of the volume had been invoked as a corrective to Wakley’s inaccuracies had been much insisted upon in counsel’s opening speech.
(To be continued.)
REPORT OF THE MEDICAL DEFENCE UNION, LIMITED. WE have already reported the proceedings of the annual meeting of this Union. We have now to notice its annual report. We can only congratulate the executive on a really splendid amount of success. The addition of new members is 252, bringing the total up to 3537, and the total guarantee The number of cases of members fund up to .&5212. or requiring aid, advice, assistance has been over 1000. It throws an unpleasant light on the risks of our profession that nearly one in three of its members seems to be exposed to attacks needing skilled defence. The schedule of cases given in abstract is a most interesting and instructive piece of medico-legal reading. Very satisfactory is the demonstration which the schedule aifords of the ability of this Union to meet almost every form of attack that can be devised by an unprincipled libeller. The success of the defensive action of the Union in the courts, and generally before the courts are reached, is almost monotonous, and suggests not only the ability of the executive, but the flimsy nature of the charges that are brought against the profession. The report should be circulated throughout the profession. We greatly doubt the expediency of the absorption of the Union by the British Medical Association. This would be an ignoble end of a body which has so much individuality and of which the profession has shown so much appreciation. We doubt whether this would be good for either of the bodies, though it is easy to see that a few leading members of each think so. One effect of such a fusion would be to necessitate the resignation by members of the General Medical Council of the membership of the British Medical Association. They could not continue to be members of a body that would then be practically a prosecuting body. The General Medical Council is severely handled in this report, often with some good reason ; but it is scarcely likely that the British Medical Association would like to lose from its membership those who are also members of the General Medical Council. This, however, is a matter that must be decided by the respective bodies. Two other
795
THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.
points in the report are very satisfactory-the promising stage have suspected the presence of another. and no-one could, of the negotiations for union with the London and Counties have foreseen the exact state of things. z Medical Protection Society and the continually lower Fig. 2 shows a small revolver bullet lying against the expenditure of the Union notwithstanding an ever-increasing metacarpal bone of the f orefin ger of a boy who had shot himamount of work. Outsiders as well as members will admit self a few days previously. When seen by Dr. Davidson the the wisdom of the appointment of Dr. Bateman as general position of the bullet could not be determined owing to secretary and the mere justice of giving him as salary B315 FiG. i
I
2.
year. He has worked well for the Union, and it would be unreasonable to expect him to continue his energy in its service without some such recognition.
a
THE NEW PHOTOGRAPHY.
someI
WE are enabled this week to lay before our readers illustrations which show very well the applications ofI Roentgen’s rays to surgery. Figs. 1 and 2 are from prints taken by Dr. McKenzie Davidson of Aberdeen. In Fig. 1 a needle had been driven into a patient’s hand, entering at the ball of the thumb, some ten months previously to her consulting a medical man. Ever since she had had more or less pain in the palm of the hand. The needle had broken on entering, for a part of it was found sticking in the table at which the patient had been working. Hence, presumably, there would be but one piece in the hand. The print, however, shows 1"IG. 1.
oedema.
The bullet had entered near the point where it was eventually found, but on probing the wound the probe passed easily down an apparent track to the styloid process of the the position of the bullet was easily deterulna. mined by the new method and it was extracted without difficulty. Dr. Davidson has used the method in three other cases. In two of them the patients were suffering from
Eventually
needles in the hands, and the third case was one of a revolvershot, also in the hand. Fig. 3 shows the hand of a patient photographed in t THE LANCET laboratory. The little nnger has been amputated, and the whole hand is much distorted by arthritis. The print is interesting as opening up possibilities for deciding on surgical procedure in talipes, for it shows, that a good view can be obtained of a distorted extremityeven when it cannot be closely applied to the plate. Fig. 4 is a very good illustration of a normal ankle-joint. The photograph was taken by Mr. Swinton, and for leave to reproduce it we are indebted to the Swan Electric Engraving-
Company.
distinctly that the needle must have broken after entering the hand, for there are two pieces lying on the ulnar side of the first metacarpal bone. This case is of great utility, for anyone on extracting the first piece would
very
hardly ’
.
We have made various t.yia;4 to obtain a photograph of the human vertebral column. but up to the present we have not succeeded. Wehave, however, taken a very good photograph through the body of a monkey (dead), into whose kidney W3 had previously insertedl uric acid calculus. a The spinal column and ribs show with great clearness, so does the calculus, although, judging by its position, it must have escaped from the kidney. It is right to add that the monkey having been.