decay has rendered a man deaf, his understanding must be vastly improved, and that sufficient acuteness of mental per. To the Editor of THE LANCET. ception for an examiner is only found in the man who has been SIR,—It would appear that the homœopaths wince under warned by defective vision that his term of life has nearly the Bedford resolutions. This morning I received the follow- expired. Perhaps these elderly gentlemen, actuated by the of dying in harness, forget that when age is seen ing note from Dr. Epps, which, with the short reply, I forward ambition a part for which it is unfit, respect and pity may be playing to you, in order that your readers may be upon their guard. changed into contempt and ridicule. I am, Sir, yours &c., I will quote the opinion of a writer in the London University T. HERBERT BARKER, M.D. Magazine on the College examinations, which neither confer honour on successful, nor disgrace on unsuccessful, candidates : " After being ushered up a long flight of stairs and into the [COPY.] presence of the examining board, the first scene of that solemn Great Russell-street, June 8th, 1858. farce begins, when four old gentlemen, in a slovenly manner, SIR,-I find your name in connexion with a meeting at Bed- pretend to verify the truth of a diploma, which states that ford on the 21st of May. I find thereat certain resolutions ’they have deliberately examined Mr. -, and have found and capable to exercise the art and science of passed unanimously. I need not designate these resolutions. him to be fit We will not pause to criticise the bullying tone of Engaged in writing a history of homoeopathy, which, I trust, surgery.’ will be, years hence, regarded as a standard work, I shall one, the coarse rebukes of another, the courteous bearing of a chronicle the facts illustrative of the opposition homoeopathy third, or the pompous pedantry of a fourth; but merely record met with; and shall try to impart a knowledge, not simply of the fact that a more unsatisfactory, unjust, and illiberal educathe general character of the opposition, but by recording both tional test is not to be found than that to which the medical the names and the status of all the parties who publicly joined student is subjected, for fifty-five minutes. It is worse than in that opposition, and the modes under which that opposition torture; it is an insult to his understanding." Can we hope this will be improved ? I believe not, whilst its present took form, thereby rendering more tangible to the recognition that of those who come after, the reality and special character of exclusive policy lasts. We have the curious anomaly of two boards presiding over the opposition. To render the history perfectly truthful and branches of one art and science, each independent, just, I have felt bound-wishing to do to others what I would different wish others to do to me-to try and ascertain, before recording and ignoring the existence, of the other. This must not last, are found unfitted for their duties, and the profession your name as one of the units engaged in the opposition, They whether or not you gave your sanction to the resolutions must raise its voice, and no longer allow these effete bodies to THE HOMŒOPATHIC HUMBUG.
referred to. Believe me, with best wishes,
obstruct the way of science with their charters and exclusive
rights. I hope that by the new measure medical men throughout this empire will be placed on an equalfooting in their several ranks; and that we shall be presided over by men who will [COPY.] consider the interests of science and humanity, to the neglect Bedford, June 10th, 1858. DEAR SIR,-In reply to your note of the 8th instant, received of chartered rights and exclusive privileges, to which these this morning, I beg to say that the resolutions referred to bodies, considering only their own private interests, have sacrificed the weal of the profession: we may then hope to see true received my most hearty sanction. science advance and quackery sink into oblivion. I am, dear Sir, yours &c., Dr. John Epps. Hoping that you will still raise yonr voice and exert your HERBERT T. 1. D. BARKER, ALM.D. power in this cause, with which your journal has always been identified, I am, Sir, your obedient servant, MEDICAL REFORM. sincerely
yours,
JOHN EPPS,
M.D.
,
To the Editor of THE LANCET. have now a prospect of obtaining a settlement of SiR,-We the long-agitated and much-hoped-for scheme of medical reform, whereby we shall have an examining board which will act on the principle that medicine and surgery are one and indivisible; whose jurisdiction will extend over the British empire, and put an end to local restrictions; and who will also be in a great measure the choice of the profession itself. Concurrently with the near approach of so desirable a change, and when its certainty seems assured, we are surprised and astonished by the announcement of great and unexpected changes in the curricula and examinations of the two boards to which the majority of the medical practitioners of England and Wales belong. These changes, although they have been long desirable, I consider to be merely the death struggles of the Apothecaries’ Hall and the Royal College of Surgeons to retain I their exclusive privileges, knowing that their fate will be decided as soon as the above scheme shall become law; feeling that as they have lost the confidence of the profession, its future members will not seek their diplomas. Finding their craft in danger, they have assumed an appearance of vigour; but I feel assured their motive is too transparent to mislead the profession or the world. These two bodies are isolated from a.nd wholly uninfluenced by the profession. The Apothecaries’ Society are a body of druggists who seek to represent, or at anyrate hold the chief authority over, the majoritv of the practitioners in England and Wales; but their examination is the laughingstock of the scientific world, and the protection they afford to their licentiates is no greater within their jurisdiction than out of it: the rifeness of quackery is sufficient proof of this assertion. From the past career and present state of the College, can we reasonably hope that it is actuated by a sincere desire for the promotion of science? I answer, No; it is a mere sham, and its only aim is the preservation of privileges. Its authorities are an exclusive and greedy oligarchy; senility or anility seem to have been necessary qualifications for examiners; they, in their wisdom reversing ordinary rules, think when physical I
June, 1858.
THETA.
ESTIMATING
[NOTE
NITRIC
ACID.
MUSPRATT.] of THE LANCET. edition of Fresenius’s Quantitative serious mistake, and one which has to
FROM
DR.
SHERIDAN
To the Editor
" last very my knowledge led several chemists astray in estimating the quantity of nitric acid in the nitrates of commerce. At p. 275 of the above-mentioned work is the following :-" Mix the triturated compound with two to three parts of perfectly anhydrous biborate of soda; put this mixture into a platinum crucible; weigh this with its contents; heat very gradually until the mass is in a state of fusion; cool, and weigh again. The diminution of weight gives the quantity of nitric acid originally present. The results are accurate." Fresenius, who is. one of the best chemists of our time, must allude to perfectly pure anhydrous salts, because if the nitrate of socla, or potassa of commerce, be taken, the following are eliminated with the nitric acid: sulphuric and hydrochloric acid, and water; so that the loss sustained can give no idea of the quantity of nitric acid in the sample. Boracie being a fixed acid, expels all the mineral acids from their’ conabinatioras ia the heat. I remain. Sir, yours respectfully, of Chemistry, Liverpool, SHERIDAN MUSPRATT, M.D., &c., Professor of Chemistry. June, 1858.
SIR,-In the Analysis," is a
College
A STUDENT’S GRIEVANCE AT THE GLASGOW
ROYAL INFIRMARY. To the Editor of THE LANCET.
SIR,-Knowing your readiness in all cases to assist students in the removal of any grievance under which they labour, I am induced to send you the following communication, which I trust you will make public through the medium of your
journal.
617
In connexion with the Glasgow Hoyal Infirmary is a dispensary, where advice is given daily, (Sundays excepted,) from two to four P.m. I, with a great many others, attend, but with little satisfaction-for this reason, that particular cases,
present, many able members to the profession of medicine, the church, and the bar. Sir Philip, the subject of our present notice, was bred to the former of these, and at a very early the military branch, serving as an assistantsuch as uterine diseases, we are not allowed to see. If a patient age embraced is brought in for advice, and the surgeon thinks she is labour- surgeon in the disturbed times prior to 1798, and being present ing under some uterine affection, she is requested to remain with the force which repulsed the landing of the French on till the last. Students taking an interest in such cases naturally the west coast of Ireland. Towards the close of that year he remain, but they are told by the surgeon that he cannot allow was nominated surgeon to the Meath Hospital, (one of the inthem to see it. firmaries of Dublin.) This event determined him to relinquish Now, Sir, is it right that medical students, paying upwards of £1000 yearly to this hospital, should be so dealt with, whilst the military for civil practice, and he accordingly settled in the porter, forsooth, is allowed to remain in the room and assist Dublin late in the autumn of 1790. He commenced business at these examinations by means of the speculum? But the in a house in Dawson-street, where he established himself as a grievance does not stop here. One of the dodges con- teacher of anatomy, having a dissecting-room and medical sists in the following-viz., patients snffering from, or those school fitted up in the rear of the premises. Here, in a loft returning to the dispensary with, uterine diseases are carefully over his stable, he first began to lecture, and his style of teachkept from the view of the students. When the general routine of the business is over, the porter enters and says, "Gentlemen, ing, combined with his perfect knowledge of the subjects which all is over," or, " Doctor, that’s the last;" giving the surgeon, he taught, soon obtained for him a large class of pupils, whilst by the former expression, to understand that there are uterine his fame as a surgeon became equally established by his pracIn tice in the wards, and his skill as an operator in the theatre of cases to be examined; by the latter, that there are none. this way, Sir, we are deceived ; and although anxious to learn the hospital. Combined with these professional qualifications, our profession in all its bearings, we are prevented from know- he was possessed of a pleasantness of manner and a winning ing anything of a most important class of diseases. way, which, in the sick room, were irresistible, and he soon I enclose my card as a token of good faith, and beg to sign became a general favourite with the public. It was not, however, in mere conversation, or in the relation of anecdote, that myself, Your obedient servant, Sir Philip Crampton excelled ; his intellectual capacity was A CONSTANT REAPER. Glasgow, June, 1858. equally conspicuous upon whatever subject came before him. mind, well cultivated and well stored in early *,* It certainly is a curious system that admits the presence To a powerful he daily added up to the latest period of his existence. youth, of the porter, and excludes the attendance of the students.- His bodily powers equalled his mental capabilities, and there SUB-ED. L. were not many who, in athletic pursuits, or in the hunting field, could show the way to Philip Crampton. Handsome in THE STARCH BANDAGE IN FRACTURE OF person, gifted in mind, with an off-hand, open, and manly THE PATELLA. To the Editor of THE LANCET. to inform Mr. Edward O’Loughlin, that the SIR,-Allow plan adopted at the Royal Free Hospital, by Mr. Weeden Cooke, in cases of fracture of the patella, has been for years carried on at the Southern Hospital, Liverpool. We used to adopt the same treatment in cases of fractures of the olecranon, and outer and inner condyles of the humerus, taking care to remove the bandage occasionally that passive motion might be employed. During the time I was house-surgeon (nearly two years), all our simple fractures were treated with the starch; and I never remember an unsuccessful case. We also found that the plan answered in treating ununited fractures, many of which we had, from accidents happening whilst at sea on board vessels not carrying surgeons, the fracture consequently remaining unset .until they came into port. Mr. Churton’s (late honorary surgeon to the hospital) practice was to put up simple fractures immediately in starch, or In infants, the plan as soon after admission as convenient. answers well. I have put the starch bandage on at the age of one week for fracture of the thigh done at birth. I may say, that out of some hundreds of cases thus treated, I never remember one turning out badly; and I think my predecessors will bear me out in this statement. I merely write this to show that the provincial are not behind the metropolitan hospitals in their practice. me
T
Yeovil, Somerset, June, 1858.
am-
Sir-
vnnr
there were few who were his equals. Such was the of whom we now speak. As a surgeon he was ready in resources and original in idea, seldom meeting a difficulty that he did not surmount. As a physician he was peculiarly happy in the selection of remedial measures, not merely looking upon the malady in question as disease per se, but rather regarding the individual in his every relation to life, and often prescribingto an end far remote from the then predominating symptoms. As a man of science he was generally able; but to zoology and comparative anatomy he paid particular attention, regarding them as subservient to the one great end-the preservation of human life. He was a patron of everything that could promote this object. He assisted in the foundation of the Royal Zoological Society of Ireland, and by his influence obtained a grant of the ground in the Phoenix-park, on which the Zoological Gardens have been established. His public appointments were numerous. He was nominated as Surgeon-general to the Forces in Ireland by the Duke of Richmond, on the death of Mr. Stewart, and subsequently appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to Her Majesty. He was consultant to the majority of the hospitals in Dublin. He was also a member of the Senate of the University of London, although we believehe never took his seat. He was a member of the Senate of the Queen’s University, and thrice President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Sir Philip Crampton was raised to the baronetage in 1839, and is succeeded in the title by his eldest son, John Fiennes Crampton, our ambassador to the Court of Russia.
bearing, man
ohedient Rervant-
EDW. C. GARLAND, M.R.C.S., &c., Late Senior Resident-Surgeon, Southern Hospital, Liverpool.
DEATH OF SIR PHILIP CRAMPTON, BART.,
Medical News. ROYAL COLLEGE
OF
SURGEONS.-The following gentle-
having undergone the necessary examinations for the Diploma, were admitted members of the College at the meet of the Court of Examiners on the llth inst. :IT is our painful duty to record the death of (if not the ablest) ing CLAYTON, RICHARD, Accrington, Lancashire. certainly one of the first surgeons that the sister kingdom has EvArrs, BENJAMIN, Duffryn, Pembrokeshire. ever produced. We allude to Sir Philip Crampton, who died HUGHES, BENJAMIN AUGUSTUS, St. Vincent, West Indies. at his residence, Merrion-square, Dublin, on the 10th instant, KEMP, BENJAMIN, Leeds. McCANN, JOHN, Tonyn, co. Longford. in the 82nd year of his age, having been born on the 7th of MORGAN, WALTER, Bridgend, Glamorganshire. June, 1777. His family were originally English, and resided at OWEN, OWEN, Leamington. South Cottingham, Notts; but leaving this county in the reign RAY, SIDNEY KEYWORTH, Milton, near Sittingbourne, Kent. of King Charles the Second, they settled in Ireland, and reSELOUS, EDRIC, Gloucester-road, Regent’s-park. mained permanently there, furnishing from that period to the WATLING, CHARLES WYAT, Tredington, Shepston-on-Stour. 618 SURGEON-GENERAL TO THE FORCES IN IRELAND.
men,