Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost and town-council of Edinburgh / by Dr Knox.

Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost and town-council of Edinburgh / by Dr Knox. 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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    selves, as matters of general interest, did yet produce a strong and lasting impression on the minds of the Tvledical Profession in Scotland, an impression highly unfavourable to the then existing Ministry, and to their predecessors in office; without referring, I repeat, to these unpleasant circumstances, I earnestly beg leave to point out to }'ou, as a fact undeniable, that the creation of these two, or of any twenty, University Chairs, is not in itself an oppres- sive act either to the student or to the public, as has been most erroneously stated to you in a Report bearing the sig- natures of ]\Ies>rs Christison, Syine, and Alison ; it is the rendering such Chairs imperative^ that makes the act op- pressive, but this, in hopes, no doubt, of its escaping the no- tice of the Council, those gentlemen have carefully kept out of view. 'I'he subdivision of the various branches of the medical art, and the distribution of these'subdivisions through a va- riety of teachers, can never be an oppressive act in itself, but rather a great advantage, both to the school of Medicine as a school, and to the public generally. It calls forth men eminent in particular lines,—offers new incentives to honour- able ambition, and polishes and improves every branch of our profession ; but the rendering such courses of lectures imperative on each individual student or candidate for medi- cal honours, whatever be his abilities, his acquirements, or his means,—therein lies the great evil of the system, but which, for the most obvious reason in the world, the Committee of Professors cautiously avoid touching on, they being holders generally of Chairs which, in respect to their being impera- Jive, are highly oppressive, and most injurious to the public interest. I will even go farther, and boldly assert, that the foundation of imperative and exclusive chairs of Clinical Surgery and of Surgery, created for the direct purpose of driving the most eminent surgeons out of this city, was an act at once the most injudicious and most oppressive which