Correspondence and editorial comments on the points at issue between Dr. Tweedie & Dr. Murchison concerning identical passages in their respective works on fever.

  • Charles Murchison
Date:
1863
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence and editorial comments on the points at issue between Dr. Tweedie & Dr. Murchison concerning identical passages in their respective works on fever. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    Tweedie a paragraph which appeared in Dr. Murchison’s essay in 1858, and was “inadvertently transcribed” by Dr. Tweedie in a manner which had misled Dr. Pickells, the third writer in question.* The language employed by Dr. Murchison is sufficiently moderate ; but no doubt the imputation was unpleasant. Dr. Tweedie therefore deputed Dr. A. P. Stewart, of the Mid- dlesex Hospital, as a mutual friend, to act between himself and Dr. Murchison, and examine the matter. From Dr. Stewart’s letter, now printed, and which lies before us, it appears that he informed Dr. Tweedie, in a very able, very temperate, and very gentlemanly letter, that Dr. Murchison could not, in fairness to himself, say less than he had said, and that “ if he had kept silence he would have laid himself open to serious miscon- struction.’ We entirely concur with Dr. Stewart. Subsequently this matter attracted more attention. A review was published in a medical periodical, and appeared, it is stated, without having been read by somebody who is supposed to edit the journal, and who seems to have given two opposite opinions, then to have denied that he ever gave any, and to have wound up by abusing other people for not giving one. Dr. Tweedie was roused into an active stage of indignation. He has printed a statement in reference to the question, and we sincerely wish that it were of a more satisfactory nature. Dr. Tweedie states that the tables, which appear both in his book and in that of Dr. Murchison, were prepared by the latter gentleman for the Lectures at the College of Physicians; that he had suggested the inquiry to Dr. Murchison; and that a3 physician he had a right to the statistics of the Fever Hospital. The similarity between his remarks and Dr. Murchison’s he accounts for by certain manuscript notes, which he says were given him by that gentleman with the tables. He adds that Dr. Murchison’s paper was not read until at least two months after the delivery of his lectures; and in reference to the paper on Change of Type, he accuses its author of committing to paper views which had been expressed by himself in conversation; and concludes by im- puting “ unworthy motives.” To all this very absorbent reasoning Dr. Murchison furnishes the telling reply of inexorable facts. The investigations embodied in his paper in the “ Medico-Chirurgical Transactions” were under- taken not at Dr. Tweedie’s suggestion, but months before that physician had expressed any intention of lecturing on the subject. He lent to Dr. Tweedie the tables which he had prepared for his own essay, and makes no complaint of his adopting them. The passages which Dr. Tweedie has transcribed were not contained in the few manuscript memoranda (mainly explanatory of the tables) which were handed to him, but are appropriated from the paper in the “ Medieo-Chirurgical Transactions.” Dr. Murchi- * See Medico Chirurgical Transactions, vol. xli., p. 900, March 30th, 1858 ; The Lancet, 1860, vol. i, p. 486; Lectures on Fevers, 1809, p. 202; and Cork Fever Hospital Reports; Feb. 21st, 1861.
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