Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Medical charity : its abuses and how to remedy them. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.
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![self for re-election. From all that we have previously said, our readers will readily appreciate the significance of this ingenious bye-law, by virtue of which the physicians and surgeons of the hospital, while denied any voice in its management, were held in a position of helpless and pitiable subjection to the General Committee. But, indeed, the more we look into the proceedings of the Committee of this Hospital, the more questionable they appear. The bye-law providing that each member of the professional staff, excepting always Dr. Protheroe Smith, should resign his office each year was evidently enacted for the express purpose of getting rid of would-be reformers likely to prove troublesome. Certain grave abuses in the management of the Hospital—chiefly in the nursing department—had during several years caused great dis- satisfaction to a majority of the medical staff. Those gentlemen complained to the Managing Committee of the evils in question; and their complaints being unheeded, they requested that Com- mittee to appoint a joint committee, composed of an equal number of lay and medical members, for the due investigation of the subject. The request was refused, and those who made it were informed by the Secretary that the Committee are of opinion that the charges made have little or no foundation. Thirteen days after this announcement the would-be reformers received copies of the new bye-law, compelling the whole of the medical staff, excepting Dr. Protheroe Smith, to go out of office each year 1 This short and easy method of dealing with insurrec- tionary members of the staflF, if not altogether admirable, was certainly very effective; but whether the Committee can afford to pay the cost of the victory it has obtained—viz., the secession of two-thirds of its professional staff—remains to be seen. These gentlemen informed the Committee that, unless the amended bye-law were allowed to revert to its original form in so far as the existing professional staff was concerned, they should with- draw from the Hospital. The Committee adhered to its bye-law ; and Dr. Meadows, Dr. Edis, Dr. Squarey, Mr. Heath, Mr. Scott, and Mr. Edgelow left the hospital; the professional gentle- men remaining are, we believe, only three in number, two of these being Dr. Protheroe Smith, and his son. Dr. Heywood Smith; and much interest is now felt in observing whether any respectable professional men will offer themselves to fill the vacancies occasioned by the retirement of the six gentlemen just mentioned. The Committee is evidently beginning to feel that it has placed itself in a position which is far from enviable; and at the Annual Meeting of the Hospital, whatever that may mean, held in May [1874], the gentlemen in power not only assumed a conciliatory attitude, but by one of the resolutions E 2](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22650489_0079.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
