Answer for the junior members of the Royal College of Surgeons, of Edinburgh, to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory / [John Bell].

  • Gregory James, 1753-1821.
Date:
1800
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Answer for the junior members of the Royal College of Surgeons, of Edinburgh, to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory / [John Bell]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    [ 2+ ] “ When a young furgeon is juft going to begin the prac- tice of his profeflion, can he have all the (kill of a fur- geon fifty years of age ?” No, furely, he cannot be both a youth of four and twenty, and a wealthy, well-em- ployed, welhrefpe&ed man of fifty years of age. He may not have much experience in difeafes, but he can- not fail to be fkilful in operations. He is juft come from that fchool where operations are explained ; he has feen and pradtifed difiedlions; he has feen and has performed operations on the dead body ; he has better marks for condudting his incifions, than the old furgeon who has learned operations perhaps only by defcription,orby obfer- ving the motions of the hand and inftruments while others have been cutting for the done.—And the Memorialift, although he fays that the attendance of every youth of four and twenty years of age is a difgrace to your Hofpi- tal, and “ bad, and worfe than bad, and worfe than the worft, for the lick poor yet does he confefs, that fuch furgeons are in pofieffion of all the experience this great fchool of furgery affords, for they have conduced the Hofpital for twenty years ! Forgetting for armoment the caufe he had undertaken to plead, the Memorialifl has told us of the old furgeons having forfaken their duties for twenty years. Have they been learning anatomy ? No, forgetting it. Have they been engaged in performing operations ? No, not one. In what does this fitnefs confift ? in the fhaking and the quaking -In what does their experience, their dexte- rity, their practice confift ? “ In fitting on the ten thou- fand blifters, deftined, time immemorial, and pre-ordain-