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.

    151/176 (page 31)
    [ ] tunes might enfue. His bufinefs, he faid, was to extrad the ftone. He left his patient to his fate, to live or die, and boldly appealed to heaven for his fuccefs. In France, it has been long the cuftom to perform operations, and efpecially that of lithotomy, only in fpring and autumn, when hundreds are colle&ed in the great hofpitals of Paris. The theatre was for a cer- tain number of days inundated with blood. Twenty were often cut for the ftone in one morning. The ope- rations were performed by the profefted lithotomifts of the two great hofpitals, la Charite and the Hotel Dieu. Then as now, fcience and politics were in that city fo confounded, that no man could rife in our profeffion, without the favour of the great. Solicitation was the chief ftudy of your great operators, and Frere Jacques fpared no pains. He paid his addreffes to the nobility, and followed the Court to Verfailles and Fontainebleau. The priefts were his natural partizans, for he was a prieft ; the phyficians were his fupporters, becaufe they hated the furgeons; the people Ihouted after him, be- caufe—he came from heaven. After various adventures and unwearied folicitations, after being driven out of the city, and returning again protected by the Court, Frere Jacques appeared once more in Paris. The magiftrates, the colleges, and the partizans of both fa&ions, were convened in the Arch-Bilhop’s palace, where, after warm and uneafy debates, the magiftrates refolved, that he fliould be al- lowed to operate in the great hofpitals; and our country- men then on their travels in France have given, in their