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
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 The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![his Lectures were published as a separate volume, he asked Dr. Murchison “ if there were any other alterations he desired to be made, and his reply was that he should be satisfied with the omission alluded to.” In addition to this, we learn from Dr. Tweedie that, during the interval—nearly four years—which has elapsed between the delivery of Dr Tweedie’s lectures at the College of Physicians, and their subsequent publication, Dr. Murchison has been on constant and intimate terms of communication with Dr. Tweedie, and has never made the slightest reclamation or objection to any statement made in Dr. Tweedie’s lectures, beyond that referred to in Dr. Tweedie’s letter. Under these circumstances, we feel bound to say that our reviewer would not have made the statements he has done had he been aware of the facts now stated by Dr. Tweedie. He took the case as it stood before him in the works of the two authors ; and was certainly totally ignorant of the fact that Dr. Murchison had unreservedly placed his notes and tables in Dr. Tweedie’s hands when Dr. Tweedie was preparing his lectures. We must add, however, that the reviewer was naturally led into error by the remark on the subject made in the preface of Dr. Murchison’s work, and that it was under the misconception thus occasioned that he was led into making the charges, which were not warranted by the facts of the case. Editor.] VI. LETTER FROM DR. MURCHISON TO EDITOR OF “BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL,” PUBLISHED JANUARY 3RD, 1863, WITH REMARKS BY THE EDITOR. Sir,—The letter from Dr. Tweedie in your last number, together with your comments thereon founded upon his statements, demands a reply from me. I have at the same time to express surprise, that you should have passed a judgment on the case, upon the assertions of one side only, notwithstanding the unbiassed opinion arrived at by your reviewer. I have important corrections to make on those assertions, which must lead your readers to a different conclusion. 1. It is not the fact that I drew up my statistical tables, either at the suggestion, or on the plan, or under the directions of Dr. Tweedie, nor that I undertook the work for his lectures. I had begun the analysis of the data contained in the records of the Fever Hospital, as an independent research, months before I heard or knew of Dr. Tweedie’s intended lectures. Dr. Tweedie may know when he formed his decision; but he is not, and cannot be, a com- petent or credible witness as to when I formed my design, and began the execution of it. Dr. Tweedie asked me to ascertain for him the sexes and mean ages of one hundred cases of typhus and typhoid fever; and on my reminding him that I was already en- gaged in a much more extended inquiry, he expressed a wish to avail himself of the results for his lectures. The internal evidence](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22371230_0021.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
