Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham.

Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Immediately after the Eeport of the Principal's speech in the published proceedings of that day, the following notice occurs :— A letter was i-ead from Mr. G. B. Knowles, apprising the Council of his intention to resign the appointment of Surgeon to the Queen's Hospital at the termination of the present academical year in July. Thus on the same day that the Council made an election, on the recommendation of the Professors, which met with uni^iersal approval, its chief declaring that the absence of canvas- sing was a conspicuous feature in the appointment, another vacancy is announced by the resignation of one of the Surgeonis of the Hospital. In the month of Aug-ust gentlemen were invited to become candidates for this vacancy, by advertisements both in the London and local journals.' This advertisement was shortened in many particulars, and the saving of expense in this matter ha» been the cause of an attack upon the honourable usages of the College, and of an attempt to damage the purity of its elections. But though unhappily the prohibition of canvassing did not appear in the original advertisements, a statement of the names of all the candidates and of other particulars relative to the election was inserted in the Birmingham Mercury ^vA Daily Press, of October 10th, in which that prohibition is referred to, as a well-recognised part of College practice. On the 13th of October the Professors met for the purpose of investi- gating the claims of the rival candidates, and reporting thereupon. At the commencement of the meeting one of the Senior Professors withdrew his son from the competition, his brethren having intimated their opinion that his early age would form an obstacle to his election as Surgeon. To this conclusion they were brought by a sense of duty only; for the superior surgical aptitude of that gentleman, and the claims possessed by him, derived from other considerations, could not be lightly passed over by the Medical Professors of Queen's College. Six candidates were finally left in the field. Three of them had been resident officers of the Hospital; the last, in point of time, of these was Mr. J. P. West. He was also, by several years, the youngest, and the only one of the whole number of can- didates who had not entered upon practice, or been connected with any institution or either of the public services, excepthig in a subordinate capa- city. One had been the first student of University College in his time, a House Surgeon of a Metropolitan Hospital, a Staft' Surgeon of the first class. Surgical Chief of a Legion during the late war, an Assistant Surgeon for some time to one of the London Hospitals, and a most learned and acute contributor to surgery in many branches ; another had also been a House Surgeon of the same Metropolitan Hospital, had been a resident officer in the Kent Infirmary, in the Brompton Consumption Hospital, and finally, for eighteen months, in the Queen's Hospital; he had also, while in private practice, performed the surgical duty of the General Dispensary for twelve months, was an operator of known skill, and, like all his com- petitors, of unblemished character. This gentleman, also, had made him- self known in one branch, of surgical literature. A third had been House Surgeon for nearly three years at the Dreadnought Hospital, under one of the most accomplished Surgeons of the age, had been in practice in Bir- mingham for five years, and during almost the whole of that time had been,' and still is, one of the Surgeons to the General Dispensary. He was well
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