MEDICAL WITNESSES ACT.

MEDICAL WITNESSES ACT.

60 say, in justice to Mr. Tweedie, that Drs. and Mr. Jones to settle whether the hospital Ryan, Mr. Pascoe St. Leger was or had been 11 a place of t...

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say, in

justice to Mr. Tweedie, that Drs. and Mr. Jones to settle whether the hospital Ryan, Mr. Pascoe St. Leger was or had been 11 a place of traffic in hu. Grenfell, the Treasurer, myself, and a man misery, disease and death!" Mr. large body of Governors, retired with him, Jones said in his letter that Mr. Pettigrew leaving Mr. Marsden and Mr. Jones to en- failed to form a school." I shall now only joy their triumph. say, that Mr. Pettigrew and myself resia ned Uwins and

11

As Mr. Jones in his letter did not " at- our situations as teachers of anatomy and tempt to controvert any of Mr. Pettigrew’s physiology, without being called upon to do statements," I proceeded to examine how he so. With respect to the praise Mr. Pettigrew proved the brag with which he set out, viz., bestows upon Dr. Golding in the pamphlet " That the force of his (Mr. P.’s) affirmations is blunted to impotence by the circumstance, that allowing all he says to be unexaggerated, every assertion tells with equal force to criminate himself, to injure that character which he prizes dearer than life," and that Mr. Pettigrew’s character had little to fear from Mr. Jones. In doing so, 1 replied to Mr. Jones’s first and second questions by stating, that in addition to Mr. Pettigrew’s own word, I myself frequently heard him complain of the want of, and repeatedly saw him obliged to write for, necessaries, which the humblest dispensary has ready at a moment’s notice; and that with respect to his associating with such "base colleagues"for 14 years, I endeavoured to show that a dispensary in Villier’sStreet, and an hospital at Charing-Cross, being two very different things, no occasions for finding fault with director, nurses, beds, operating table, and all the other appurtenances of an hospital, presented themselves in Villier’s-street during the 12 years Mr. Pettigrew was attached to the dispensary in that locality. I agreed with Mr. Jones in one of his statements, viz., " that the Job cut Mr. Pettigrew, not he the Job," and for this reason, that every "Jcb " will endeavour to cut the individual who opposes it ; but I denied that Mr. P. clung to it " with long and ardent attachment." I stated he clung to the hospital, and I am now happy to state he still clings to it, with a view to making it what the gorernol’S and the public have a right to insist upon-a place of comfort and to the sick poor, and an hospital with the required number of beds for medical I tuition. My letter was uselessly prolonged i in commenting upon Mr. Jones’s trifling, when he drew a kind of negative comparison between the manners of Mr. Pettigrew and Dr. Golding, forgetting that Mr. Jones set out with saying, "it was all a matter of I endeavoured to show that a taste." union with the King’s College would have been of material benefit to the hospital, inasmuch as it would have enabled Dr. Golding to apply the money he laid out at the time in the erection of a theatre, to the " welfare of the patients, which was " by Mr. Jones’ account, " the tirst object of the " Doctor; and particularly when every nerve was strained to keep 100 beds furnished, with the philauthropic view of a recornitior? of the institution by the College of Surgeons ; and I left the Editor of THE LANCET

relief

hydrophobia, it is merely given to him founder of the hospital, not as the directorand all the extracts quoted in your last Journal, by Mr. Robertson, from the pen of Dr. Sigmond, give the Doctor no upon as

the

yet it is odd that Mr. Jones supports this office of director upon the grounds of " the success of the Charing-Cross Hospi. tal!" Allow me, in conclusion to say, that two gentlemen of high professional eminence and unsullied reputation, are placed before the medical public in a position demanding our support and co-operation in their present vexatious and frivolous persecution ; and that in my former letter I appealed, and I now again do so with confidence, to the Editor of THE LANCET, as one always ready to follow abuses to their source, and root them out when detected. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient humble servant, P. BENNETT LUCAS. LUCAS. more ;

7, Store-street, Bedford-square,

Sept. 20, 1836. publication of letters on cease. Ample time and subject have been afforded to the prinopportunity cipals for accusation and defence. Farther discussion of the proceedings in question

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this

Here the

must

must be conducted in

will tend more quickly results.-ED. L.

some manner

which

and satisfactorily to

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MEDICAL WITNESSES ACT. To the Edito/’ of THE LANCET. SIR :--I have the honour to inform you that at a meeting of the Committee of the "Berks Medical Association," holden at the Reading Dispensary, September 26, 1836, the following resolutions were passed

unanimously :"

That the thanks of this Society be presented to THOMAS WAKLEY, Esq., M.P., for his zealous and persevering exertions, and his able and successful conduct of the medical Witnesses Bill’ through Par Liament. « That a copy of the above be forwarded for publication, to THE LANCET and the LONDON MEDICAL GAZETTE." I have the honour to be, Sir, your very

obedient servant,

GEORGE MAY.

Reading, Sept. 26th, 1836.