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ON THE DETECTION OF ARSENIC.
509 first offered, and actually got himself appointed to two, including addressed to the Editor of The Times, to the loose and careless nineteen parishes, with over nine thousand inhabitants, and manner in which investigations into the causes of death were twenty-six thousand acres, and with a distance of fourteen miles frequently conducted before coroners, and clearly showed that between their extreme limits. The guardians conferred these the verdicts which juries often returned were totally at variance districts on this person-Mr. Henry Greaves-knowing the line with the evidence adduced; and then I brought forward several of conduct he had pursued; and Mr. Assistant-Commissioner examples to prove that these inquiries, which demanded the Weale recommended him, although remonstrated with by a most serious attention, were too frequently mockeries and mere deputation of the medical gentlemen of the town and neighbour- matters of form. The proceedings in the case of this unfortuhood, inasmuch as the medical order of March, 1842, defined the nate child are confirmatory of the truth of this opinion. If the qualifications necessary to hold a poor-law appointment in Eng- medical man had refused to give any evidence, which every man land or Wales, which qualifications Mr. H. Greaves did not pos- is justified in withholding, (unless sufficient and obvious cause of sess, he being a licentiate of the Hall alone. I full well remember, death be apparent,) without being allowed the opportunity of that even during the present session of parliament you were good satisfying himself, the coroner must have ordered a post mortem enough to move for that order which was furnished by Mr. examination, which would most probably have resulted in the Secretary Graham to you, and yet in so short a time afterwards prevention of two or more subsequent murders. was violated and set at naught by the very men who introThis case affords another instance of the fearful effects of duced it.
in conducting a solemn judicial inquiry. If the parties whose business it was to investigate the cause of this poor child’s death had faithfully and diligently performed their duty, the fact of poison having been taken would have been developed, and an immediate stop would probably have been put to these wholesale murders; but instead of a patient and accurate examination into all the facts, the coroner and jury are satisfied with a superficial inquiry. The, medical testimony, often of such incalculable importance, did not in this case assist the jury in arriving at right conclusions, but was of such a vague and negative character as rather tended to mislead their minds and confirm their erroneous verdict. The coroner and surgeon mutually endeavour to exculpate each other for their remissness, the former by throwing the blame on the magistrates, the latter by professing his readiness his duty if the coroner had insisted on its to have
negligence
By giving insertion in
THE LANCET to the foregoing remarks, with any extracts from the statement enclosed you think proper, you will be conferring a great favour on the medical practitioners, not alone of this town, but of the county at large. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, W. B. McEGAN, M.D. Ashbourne, Derbyshire, April 23, 1845.
REMARKS ON THE SHAPWICK POISONINGS. To the Editor
of the Times. who was convicted at Taunton Assizes of having wilfully murdered her brother, Charles Dimond, by arsenic, having paid the last penalty of the law, the circumstances connected with her case are now fairly open to any remarks which may have a beneficial tendency. She is now beyond the influence of such remarks, and as there are some important circumstances connected with the Shapwick poisonings, I beg to submit the following for consideration :This woman was committed to prison on the accumulated charges of having murdered Henrv Freeman, her husband; James Dimond, her child ; Mary Dimond, her mother; and Charles Dimond her brother. The first thing which must strike every one is, that so many murders should have been committed on members of the same family without creating suspicion in the minds of the neighbours, and more especially in that of the medical man, if any were called to the assistance of the unfortunate sufferers. As the same means of destruction were employed in every case-namely, the administration of arsenic-a poison which produces well-known and unmistakable effects, my surprise is still greater that one member after another of the same family should have been attacked with the same violent symptoms, all terminating in death, without leading to immediate and searching investigation into the cause of such fatality. At length, however, after the death of James Dimond, a child of seven years of age, her illegitimate offspring, Henry Freeman, the husband, and an old woman, her mother, the attention of the magistrates residing in the parish was aroused by the death of her brother, under very suspicious circumstances, after a short illness. An inquiry was instituted, and a post mortem examination made, which led to the detection of arsenic in the body of the deceased; this at opije explained the mystery, and raised suspicions that the deatlis of the three other unfortunate victims were caused by the same deadly agents, and other examinations The body of the were made in consequence of this discovery. child, which was buried in November, 1843, was exhumed in the month of January, 1845, and, on the stomach and other viscera being subjected to chemical analysis, unequivocal proof of the presence of arsenic was obtained. Now, a coroner’s inquest had been held on the body of this very child, a few days after death, at which a surgeon gave the following evidence, (The Times, January 20th, 1845):—" I found no external marks of violence or abrasions of any kind; the tongue and gums appeared natural, with the exception of the tongue being dry. In the anterior part of the abdomen, decomposition appeared to be going on. I gave my opinion to the coroner that I could not discover that any hands of violence had been laid on the child. I did not know that I had ever seen the child alive, and from the evidence of Mrs. Chapple, the next-door neighbour, I supposed the child to have died from natural causes, and I told the coroner that I was quite ready to make a post niortem examination of the body if he wculd direct me. His reply was, that the and he did magistrates were particular as regarded the not order me to do so." The jury expressed themselves perfectly sdtisfied with the evidence adduced, and returned a verdict, without hesitation-" Died from natural causes ;" and that no blame was attached to any individual. In the month of January, 1841, I directed the attention of the public, in a letter
SIR,-Sarah Freeman,
expenses,
performed
necessity.
I do not think Mr. Wakley, whose acuteness and patience so eminently qualify him for the office of coroner, would have been deterred by the fear of remarks from any quarter from availing himself of every means of eliciting the truth. Nor do I think that a coroner, acting under such apprehension, can rightly understand the importance of his office, or the power with which the law invests him. If the fact which the coroner is reported to have stated be true, (and he has repeatedly made the same statement to me,) that the magistrates object to the payment of the fee for
making a post mortem examination, the sooner such a. system, so calculated to favour the escape of suspected criminals, be abandoned, the better ; but I cannot imagine that the magistrates can have done more than give a salutary caution to the coroner to avoid unnecessary examinations, often so repugnant to the feelings of the survivors, which would entail a useless ex-
the county. It is quite impossible to believe that the who compose that body would willingly throw the least obstacle in the way of inquiry, and, indeed, the coroner ought to know they h2.ve no such power. The office of coroner is one of the highest importance, and involves great and heavy responsibilities, to which none but intelligent and well-qualified persons ought to be appointed. If this practice had been obobserved, some of Sarah Freeman’s victims might now have been living, and the dreadful mortality which occurred in the workhouse of this Union a few years since might have been checked, if not entirely prevented. JONATHAN TOOGOOD, M.D. Bridgewater, April 24.
pense
on
gentlemen
ON THE DETECTION OF ARSENIC. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SiR,—I perceive in your number for the 29th of March-, (page 367,) that Dr. Ayres proposes, as facilitating the process for the detection of arsenious acid, the converting it into arsenic acid by chlorine. It is a fact, now at least well known, that almost all metals in solution, capable of combining with an additional quantity of oxygen, are peroxidized by passing through their solution a current of chlorine gas. I have been in the habit of showing this to my forensic class tor several years, and as it is not every one, perhaps, who could conveniently pass through a stream of chlorine, I exemplify by the more simple mode of £ effecting the peroxidation by means of boiling with nitro-hydrochloric acid, aqua regia; and the intermixture of the acids should be such that is in the proportions necessary to effect the complete destruction of the two acids. Dr. Ayres’s observations are in perfect unison with the results of my own, but there are two additional matters of some moment, and which, on examination, he will find to be facts. The arsenic acid is a much more fixed one than the arseniolis, and consequentlyless liable to be dissipated in any process requiring heat. Arsenious acid does not singly decompose nitrate of silver; the arsenic does. Hydrosulphuric acid gas equally throws. down a sulphuret of the metal, as from the arsenious, the only
510 difference being the presence of a larger quantity of sulphur in combination with the arsenic, and the sulphuret in either case is reducible by Mack nux. When arseniate of silver is reduced by charcoal in a tube, nearly the whole, if not entirely the whole, of the volatile metal sublimes. The conversion of the arsenious into arsenic acid, and the destruction of the organic matter, may be effected by evaporating to dryness, and fusing the dried mass with nitrate of potass; on treating the residue with distilled water, a solution of arseniate of potass will be obtained, which may be treated in a variety of ways, quite unnecessary here to detail. Although I cannot immediately refer to the place, I think I bave mentioned the above processes either in THE LANCET or the Medical Gazette, or else in some other publication ; but if not, I have been constantly in the habit of exhibiting the processes to my forensic class; and it is matter of great congratulation to me to find that it is not only original with, but so highly approved of by, authority such as Dr. Ayres. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, ROBERT VENABLES. St. Vincent-place, City-road. April 15, 1845.
SIR,—I beg
acknowledge
the
Whitehall, March 31,1845. of your letter of the
receipt
28th inst. A gentleman who now holds the diploma of the College of Surgeons, and also that of a physician, cannot register on both. If he registers as a physician he may practise surgery, but he has no legal title to fees, which are honorary. He may register afterwards, at any time, as physician, if he prefers not to do so now.
A gentleman who registers as a physician, holding also a surgical diploma, may practise in all the branches of the profession, and hold surgical appointments. This will be better secured by the intended omission, in committee, of the last part of the 28th
section of the Bill. I have the honour to
be, Sir, your obedient servant, JAMES GRAHAM.
The Hon. Craven F.
Berkeley,
M.P.
DR. LINDLEY’S LECTURES. To the Editor
ofTHE
LANCET.
SIR,—I perceive by the circular which has just been issued by the Society of Apothecaries, that Dr. Lindley is to deliver his the annual course of lectures on botany at the Chelsea Gardens, so
WE have received the following letter, among others, on MUNTZ’S proposition :To the Editor of TaF LANCET. SIR,—The proposal of Mr. Muntz " to introduce a clause into Sir James Graham’s Medical Bill, to make it imperativethat all prescriptions should be written in the English instead of the Latin language,’ " is evidently unfair to the physician, the surgeon, and the chemist, to those who prescribe and those who prepare medicines; whilst it would not affect the apothecary, who does not give a prescription, but sends medicines to his patients. The advantages of the Latin language are, its preciseness and its conciseness, the disadvantages of the English language are, the jumble of untranslatable terms in our medical nomenclature: "Take of creosote," for instance; or "of the hydrochloride of lime;" and, in some cases, the too great facility with which the prescription may be read ; more than one half of its efficacy depending on its secrecy. In all hypochondriacal cases, I would write my prescriptions in symbolical characters, if it could be read by the chemist. It is the practice of same medical men to write their prescriptions so illegibly as to defy the most skilful scribe to decipher them. Why is this ? FAIRPLAY. Yours, April 29, 1845.
subject of Mr.
to
early as half-past eight A.M. This early lecturing -will greatly inconvenience students generally, but more particularly those who live a long distance from the gardens. I think you will agree with me that this plan of proceeding, on the Society of Apothecaries’ part, is anything but just and fair to students, for two reasons:-First, with respect to distance, by which the majo. rity of students will not be able to attend in time to hear the learned professor’s lectures at that time of the morning, as there are no vehicles of any kind that ply so early, with the exception of cabs, which are rather too expensive for the students. Secondly, by attending these lectures so early, students will be obliged to miss or lose a greater partof their own lectures at their different hospitals. The time fixed may suit Dr. Lindley and a few of the students very well, but surely the opinions of the majority of them ought to have some, if not more attention, paid to them by the Apothecaries’ Society. In conclusion, I would venture to suggest that the lectures on botany be delivered in the afternoon, when most, if not all, of the students will have ended their studies at the hospitals for the day, whereby they will be able to set out for the gardens, as vehicles will be plying to and fro, and they will not have lost any of their lectures delivered at the hospitals. Knowing that you advocate and have the interests of the stuREGISTRATION QUERIES. dents at heart, I trust you will oblige, not myself only, but also To Me Editor of THE LANCET. the whole body of students in this metropolis, by inserting these SIR,—I should feel obliged by the insertion of the enclosed few lines in your next journal. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, letters in the pages of your journal, as I think them of conse- ’, FRANCIS LEOPOLD HOOPER, quence to gentlemen who hold the double qualification. ’ Student at St. Thomas’s Hospital. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, WM. PHILPOT PHILPOT BROOKES, M.D., M.R.C.S.E. St. Thomas’s Hospital, April 30, 1845. Albion-House, Cheltenham, April 2, 1845. THE JAMAICA COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND Cheltenham, March 28, 1845. SURGEONS. a number of SIR,—I have been applied to by gentlemen of the To the Editor of THE LANCET. medical profession, practising in this town and neighbourhood, to SIR,—I perceive by the new charter for the incorporation of apply to you respecting clause 17 of the Medical Bill of last session, which, it appears, is omitted in the new Bill, and which gave the medical profession, published in THE LANCET of March 15th, the power to gentlemen holding the diploma of surgeon and phy- 1845, that " Every gentleman who was in actual practice &c. presician to register in both. Now, as many gentlemen practise as vious to 1815, and every licentiate &c., every doctor or bachelor surgeons, and wish to continue to do so, who have also their of ANY University of the United Kingdom, and every fellow or physicians’ qualification, to use at any future period, should they licentiate of ANY College of the United Kingdom, who shall have feel inclined, I should esteem it a favour if you would oblige me been &c. in actual practice as a general practitioner in England with a reply to the following questions, as the doubt is by no or Wales at the period of granting the charter, and who shall be means solved by reference to the above-named Bills. enrolled a member WITHIN TWELVE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF First.-Can a gentleman, who now holds the diploma of the THE CHARTER," shall be considered de factis a fellow of the College of Surgeons, and also that of a physician, register on college. Here there is no mention that the surgeons, or fellows, or both, and if not, how can he, at any future period, register either without paying any extra fees for registration, and without pass- graduates of the Jamaica College of Physicians and Surgeons, ing another examination ? incorporated by royal charter, shall be entitled to similar priviSecondly.—Can a gentleman, who registers as a physician, leges. This must surely be an oversight. The Jamaica College (holding also a surgical diploma,) practise in all the branches of contains some of the most eminent men in the profession, the profession, and hold surgical appointments? It would " whether at home or abroad," members of the Edinburgh, Duhappear a great hardship for those who have obtained both a phy- lin, Cambridge, London, and other Colleges, and whose talents siciar’s and surgeon’s diploma, to be compelled to give up either and professional skill will stand a comparison with any body of of their degrees, and thus to be deprived of that which may have practitioners in Earope. The members, however, of these colleges practisirg In Jamaica, been obtained at considerable cost of money, time, and study, particularly ascircumstances might in future life render the pos- I should think, are not excluded by this clause, asthey will claim to be registered members by virtue of their British diplomata ; session of oneof those qualifications highly desirable. but what will be the condition of those gentlemen who have only I havethe honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, CRAVEN F. BERKELEY. the Jamaica diploma, supposing at any period of their lives they To the Right Hon. Sir James Graham, Bart., &c. &c. &c. should wish to settle in Great Britain or Ireland ? Why, they
I!
’
in conducting a solemn judicial inquiry. If the parties whose business it was to investigate the cause of this poor child’s death had faithfully and diligently performed their duty, the fact of poison having been taken would have been developed, and an immediate stop would probably have been put to these wholesale murders; but instead of a patient and accurate examination into all the facts, the coroner and jury are satisfied with a superficial inquiry. The, medical testimony, often of such incalculable importance, did not in this case assist the jury in arriving at right conclusions, but was of such a vague and negative character as rather tended to mislead their minds and confirm their erroneous verdict. The coroner and surgeon mutually endeavour to exculpate each other for their remissness, the former by throwing the blame on the magistrates, the latter by professing his readiness his duty if the coroner had insisted on its to have
negligence
By giving insertion in
THE LANCET to the foregoing remarks, with any extracts from the statement enclosed you think proper, you will be conferring a great favour on the medical practitioners, not alone of this town, but of the county at large. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, W. B. McEGAN, M.D. Ashbourne, Derbyshire, April 23, 1845.
REMARKS ON THE SHAPWICK POISONINGS. To the Editor
of the Times. who was convicted at Taunton Assizes of having wilfully murdered her brother, Charles Dimond, by arsenic, having paid the last penalty of the law, the circumstances connected with her case are now fairly open to any remarks which may have a beneficial tendency. She is now beyond the influence of such remarks, and as there are some important circumstances connected with the Shapwick poisonings, I beg to submit the following for consideration :This woman was committed to prison on the accumulated charges of having murdered Henrv Freeman, her husband; James Dimond, her child ; Mary Dimond, her mother; and Charles Dimond her brother. The first thing which must strike every one is, that so many murders should have been committed on members of the same family without creating suspicion in the minds of the neighbours, and more especially in that of the medical man, if any were called to the assistance of the unfortunate sufferers. As the same means of destruction were employed in every case-namely, the administration of arsenic-a poison which produces well-known and unmistakable effects, my surprise is still greater that one member after another of the same family should have been attacked with the same violent symptoms, all terminating in death, without leading to immediate and searching investigation into the cause of such fatality. At length, however, after the death of James Dimond, a child of seven years of age, her illegitimate offspring, Henry Freeman, the husband, and an old woman, her mother, the attention of the magistrates residing in the parish was aroused by the death of her brother, under very suspicious circumstances, after a short illness. An inquiry was instituted, and a post mortem examination made, which led to the detection of arsenic in the body of the deceased; this at opije explained the mystery, and raised suspicions that the deatlis of the three other unfortunate victims were caused by the same deadly agents, and other examinations The body of the were made in consequence of this discovery. child, which was buried in November, 1843, was exhumed in the month of January, 1845, and, on the stomach and other viscera being subjected to chemical analysis, unequivocal proof of the presence of arsenic was obtained. Now, a coroner’s inquest had been held on the body of this very child, a few days after death, at which a surgeon gave the following evidence, (The Times, January 20th, 1845):—" I found no external marks of violence or abrasions of any kind; the tongue and gums appeared natural, with the exception of the tongue being dry. In the anterior part of the abdomen, decomposition appeared to be going on. I gave my opinion to the coroner that I could not discover that any hands of violence had been laid on the child. I did not know that I had ever seen the child alive, and from the evidence of Mrs. Chapple, the next-door neighbour, I supposed the child to have died from natural causes, and I told the coroner that I was quite ready to make a post niortem examination of the body if he wculd direct me. His reply was, that the and he did magistrates were particular as regarded the not order me to do so." The jury expressed themselves perfectly sdtisfied with the evidence adduced, and returned a verdict, without hesitation-" Died from natural causes ;" and that no blame was attached to any individual. In the month of January, 1841, I directed the attention of the public, in a letter
SIR,-Sarah Freeman,
expenses,
performed
necessity.
I do not think Mr. Wakley, whose acuteness and patience so eminently qualify him for the office of coroner, would have been deterred by the fear of remarks from any quarter from availing himself of every means of eliciting the truth. Nor do I think that a coroner, acting under such apprehension, can rightly understand the importance of his office, or the power with which the law invests him. If the fact which the coroner is reported to have stated be true, (and he has repeatedly made the same statement to me,) that the magistrates object to the payment of the fee for
making a post mortem examination, the sooner such a. system, so calculated to favour the escape of suspected criminals, be abandoned, the better ; but I cannot imagine that the magistrates can have done more than give a salutary caution to the coroner to avoid unnecessary examinations, often so repugnant to the feelings of the survivors, which would entail a useless ex-
the county. It is quite impossible to believe that the who compose that body would willingly throw the least obstacle in the way of inquiry, and, indeed, the coroner ought to know they h2.ve no such power. The office of coroner is one of the highest importance, and involves great and heavy responsibilities, to which none but intelligent and well-qualified persons ought to be appointed. If this practice had been obobserved, some of Sarah Freeman’s victims might now have been living, and the dreadful mortality which occurred in the workhouse of this Union a few years since might have been checked, if not entirely prevented. JONATHAN TOOGOOD, M.D. Bridgewater, April 24.
pense
on
gentlemen
ON THE DETECTION OF ARSENIC. To the Editor of THE LANCET. SiR,—I perceive in your number for the 29th of March-, (page 367,) that Dr. Ayres proposes, as facilitating the process for the detection of arsenious acid, the converting it into arsenic acid by chlorine. It is a fact, now at least well known, that almost all metals in solution, capable of combining with an additional quantity of oxygen, are peroxidized by passing through their solution a current of chlorine gas. I have been in the habit of showing this to my forensic class tor several years, and as it is not every one, perhaps, who could conveniently pass through a stream of chlorine, I exemplify by the more simple mode of £ effecting the peroxidation by means of boiling with nitro-hydrochloric acid, aqua regia; and the intermixture of the acids should be such that is in the proportions necessary to effect the complete destruction of the two acids. Dr. Ayres’s observations are in perfect unison with the results of my own, but there are two additional matters of some moment, and which, on examination, he will find to be facts. The arsenic acid is a much more fixed one than the arseniolis, and consequentlyless liable to be dissipated in any process requiring heat. Arsenious acid does not singly decompose nitrate of silver; the arsenic does. Hydrosulphuric acid gas equally throws. down a sulphuret of the metal, as from the arsenious, the only
510 difference being the presence of a larger quantity of sulphur in combination with the arsenic, and the sulphuret in either case is reducible by Mack nux. When arseniate of silver is reduced by charcoal in a tube, nearly the whole, if not entirely the whole, of the volatile metal sublimes. The conversion of the arsenious into arsenic acid, and the destruction of the organic matter, may be effected by evaporating to dryness, and fusing the dried mass with nitrate of potass; on treating the residue with distilled water, a solution of arseniate of potass will be obtained, which may be treated in a variety of ways, quite unnecessary here to detail. Although I cannot immediately refer to the place, I think I bave mentioned the above processes either in THE LANCET or the Medical Gazette, or else in some other publication ; but if not, I have been constantly in the habit of exhibiting the processes to my forensic class; and it is matter of great congratulation to me to find that it is not only original with, but so highly approved of by, authority such as Dr. Ayres. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, ROBERT VENABLES. St. Vincent-place, City-road. April 15, 1845.
SIR,—I beg
acknowledge
the
Whitehall, March 31,1845. of your letter of the
receipt
28th inst. A gentleman who now holds the diploma of the College of Surgeons, and also that of a physician, cannot register on both. If he registers as a physician he may practise surgery, but he has no legal title to fees, which are honorary. He may register afterwards, at any time, as physician, if he prefers not to do so now.
A gentleman who registers as a physician, holding also a surgical diploma, may practise in all the branches of the profession, and hold surgical appointments. This will be better secured by the intended omission, in committee, of the last part of the 28th
section of the Bill. I have the honour to
be, Sir, your obedient servant, JAMES GRAHAM.
The Hon. Craven F.
Berkeley,
M.P.
DR. LINDLEY’S LECTURES. To the Editor
ofTHE
LANCET.
SIR,—I perceive by the circular which has just been issued by the Society of Apothecaries, that Dr. Lindley is to deliver his the annual course of lectures on botany at the Chelsea Gardens, so
WE have received the following letter, among others, on MUNTZ’S proposition :To the Editor of TaF LANCET. SIR,—The proposal of Mr. Muntz " to introduce a clause into Sir James Graham’s Medical Bill, to make it imperativethat all prescriptions should be written in the English instead of the Latin language,’ " is evidently unfair to the physician, the surgeon, and the chemist, to those who prescribe and those who prepare medicines; whilst it would not affect the apothecary, who does not give a prescription, but sends medicines to his patients. The advantages of the Latin language are, its preciseness and its conciseness, the disadvantages of the English language are, the jumble of untranslatable terms in our medical nomenclature: "Take of creosote," for instance; or "of the hydrochloride of lime;" and, in some cases, the too great facility with which the prescription may be read ; more than one half of its efficacy depending on its secrecy. In all hypochondriacal cases, I would write my prescriptions in symbolical characters, if it could be read by the chemist. It is the practice of same medical men to write their prescriptions so illegibly as to defy the most skilful scribe to decipher them. Why is this ? FAIRPLAY. Yours, April 29, 1845.
subject of Mr.
to
early as half-past eight A.M. This early lecturing -will greatly inconvenience students generally, but more particularly those who live a long distance from the gardens. I think you will agree with me that this plan of proceeding, on the Society of Apothecaries’ part, is anything but just and fair to students, for two reasons:-First, with respect to distance, by which the majo. rity of students will not be able to attend in time to hear the learned professor’s lectures at that time of the morning, as there are no vehicles of any kind that ply so early, with the exception of cabs, which are rather too expensive for the students. Secondly, by attending these lectures so early, students will be obliged to miss or lose a greater partof their own lectures at their different hospitals. The time fixed may suit Dr. Lindley and a few of the students very well, but surely the opinions of the majority of them ought to have some, if not more attention, paid to them by the Apothecaries’ Society. In conclusion, I would venture to suggest that the lectures on botany be delivered in the afternoon, when most, if not all, of the students will have ended their studies at the hospitals for the day, whereby they will be able to set out for the gardens, as vehicles will be plying to and fro, and they will not have lost any of their lectures delivered at the hospitals. Knowing that you advocate and have the interests of the stuREGISTRATION QUERIES. dents at heart, I trust you will oblige, not myself only, but also To Me Editor of THE LANCET. the whole body of students in this metropolis, by inserting these SIR,—I should feel obliged by the insertion of the enclosed few lines in your next journal. I have the honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, letters in the pages of your journal, as I think them of conse- ’, FRANCIS LEOPOLD HOOPER, quence to gentlemen who hold the double qualification. ’ Student at St. Thomas’s Hospital. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, WM. PHILPOT PHILPOT BROOKES, M.D., M.R.C.S.E. St. Thomas’s Hospital, April 30, 1845. Albion-House, Cheltenham, April 2, 1845. THE JAMAICA COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND Cheltenham, March 28, 1845. SURGEONS. a number of SIR,—I have been applied to by gentlemen of the To the Editor of THE LANCET. medical profession, practising in this town and neighbourhood, to SIR,—I perceive by the new charter for the incorporation of apply to you respecting clause 17 of the Medical Bill of last session, which, it appears, is omitted in the new Bill, and which gave the medical profession, published in THE LANCET of March 15th, the power to gentlemen holding the diploma of surgeon and phy- 1845, that " Every gentleman who was in actual practice &c. presician to register in both. Now, as many gentlemen practise as vious to 1815, and every licentiate &c., every doctor or bachelor surgeons, and wish to continue to do so, who have also their of ANY University of the United Kingdom, and every fellow or physicians’ qualification, to use at any future period, should they licentiate of ANY College of the United Kingdom, who shall have feel inclined, I should esteem it a favour if you would oblige me been &c. in actual practice as a general practitioner in England with a reply to the following questions, as the doubt is by no or Wales at the period of granting the charter, and who shall be means solved by reference to the above-named Bills. enrolled a member WITHIN TWELVE MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF First.-Can a gentleman, who now holds the diploma of the THE CHARTER," shall be considered de factis a fellow of the College of Surgeons, and also that of a physician, register on college. Here there is no mention that the surgeons, or fellows, or both, and if not, how can he, at any future period, register either without paying any extra fees for registration, and without pass- graduates of the Jamaica College of Physicians and Surgeons, ing another examination ? incorporated by royal charter, shall be entitled to similar priviSecondly.—Can a gentleman, who registers as a physician, leges. This must surely be an oversight. The Jamaica College (holding also a surgical diploma,) practise in all the branches of contains some of the most eminent men in the profession, the profession, and hold surgical appointments? It would " whether at home or abroad," members of the Edinburgh, Duhappear a great hardship for those who have obtained both a phy- lin, Cambridge, London, and other Colleges, and whose talents siciar’s and surgeon’s diploma, to be compelled to give up either and professional skill will stand a comparison with any body of of their degrees, and thus to be deprived of that which may have practitioners in Earope. The members, however, of these colleges practisirg In Jamaica, been obtained at considerable cost of money, time, and study, particularly ascircumstances might in future life render the pos- I should think, are not excluded by this clause, asthey will claim to be registered members by virtue of their British diplomata ; session of oneof those qualifications highly desirable. but what will be the condition of those gentlemen who have only I havethe honour to be, Sir, your obedient servant, CRAVEN F. BERKELEY. the Jamaica diploma, supposing at any period of their lives they To the Right Hon. Sir James Graham, Bart., &c. &c. &c. should wish to settle in Great Britain or Ireland ? Why, they
I!
’