To the members of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh / [James Hamilton].

  • James Hamilton
Date:
[1825]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: To the members of the Senatus Academicus of the University of Edinburgh / [James Hamilton]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    course at present enjoined on the Graduates of our University,” an assertion sent to the Senatus in print by another of our Colleagues, neither Dr Hope nor the Reverend Dr.Brunton could have been enti¬ tled to bring the matter under the review of the Senatus Academicus, after having recorded my new commission. Again, I take the liberty to assert, as I have so often already done, that there is not one expression in my printed Memorial of \§th Janu¬ ary 1824, which can be pointed out as supporting, even in a remote degree, any one of the allegations in the motion made by Dr Hope, and seconded by the Heverend Dr Brunton. It is a most wonderful circumstance, that although the several Members of the Medical Faculty have always held out the very allegations contained in Dr Hope’s motion, and have, according to my information, declared, upon different occasions, within these few weeks, at Meetings of the Senatus Academicus, that in my printed Memorial, “ I had misre¬ presented the nature of their Lectures,” not one of them, except Dr Duncan senior, has ever been able to specify a particular pa¬ ragraph in proof of such charges ; and you must be convinced, that Dr Duncan senior has proceeded upon a paragraph of his own manufac¬ turing,—by leaving out one of my words, he has totally perverted my meaning. Can the Professor of Chemistry, or the Professor of Botany, or the Professor of Anatomy, or the Professor of Materia Medica, shew one sentence in my printed Memorial which misrepresents their duties? The Professor of the Practice of Physic has told the Senatus, that out of an hundred and forty Lectures which he gives annually, about ninety relate to the Diseases of Women and Children. If this be true, I admit that I have misunderstood the nature of his Lectures. He has, however, no right to complain that I have said, that it is not the duty of the Professor of the Practice of Physic to teach the Diseases of Women and Children ; for it is the will of the Patrons, that Lectures on those subjects should be given by one actually engaged in practising in such diseases, and not by a general Practitioner; and there can be only one opinion upon the utility of this plan. Were
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