Inquiry respecting Mr. Charles Whitlaw's practice in scrofula and cancer : and the propriety of instituting an asylum, under his care, for these complaints, &c. / by A. Rennie.

  • Rennie, A.
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Inquiry respecting Mr. Charles Whitlaw's practice in scrofula and cancer : and the propriety of instituting an asylum, under his care, for these complaints, &c. / by A. Rennie. 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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    posing her case openly to strangers, in the steam-boat, as a dreadful cancer. In London, patient attended at Mr. Whitlaw's house almost every morning for five weeks, continuing his treatment. On the Wednesdays was always detained the whole day to be shown off, till she at length refused, yet still she was kept hanging on for several hour?. Patient heard, on one occasion, Mr. Whitlaw say to a medical man, who had come to sec his patients, that it was a pity he had not come the day before, as his house, at that time, had been literally filled with cancerous cases. Patient knew this to be incorrect, as she had been kept waiting in the house from 9 till 2, and from 4 till past 6, and had not seen more than one case of supposed cancer. Saw no case of cure under Mr. Whitlaw, but many patients, after being a short time under him, went away much dissatisfied; had made very particular inquiries about cures, but never discovered any. This patient and a gentleman from Devonshire, who afterwards went away without benefit, pressed Mr. Whitlaw much to substantiate to them one case of a cure, and they would do every thing in their power to support him. So far from doing so, he only answered in a vague and evasive manner, and mentioned several cases as cures which they knew to be no cures at all. With regard to her own case, at the end of six weeks, instead of being cured, as Mr. Whitlaw had promised, the disease was every day making more rapid progress. The vajxjur-bath excited the cir- culation so much as to put the patient in dreadful agony, so that at last the patient was obliged to be carried home after it; yet, even at this time, Mr. Whitlaw was declaring to his other patients that she was getting better. On one occasion, Mr. Whitlaw found her very faint—he ordered her to eat bread, though she threw it up again, as the cancer was in her stomach, and bread would soak it up, and carry it off*. On the day Mr. Whitlaw first saw the patient, he said her case was nothing at all to cure. Two days after she put herself under his care, she heard him say to a lady, that it was so desperate that he almost refused to take it. Patient saw a man come to Mr. Whitlaw with palsy, having lost the use of one side. He wafr ordered the vapour-bath. This man received no benefit. Heard Mr. Whitlaw say he did not want people in carriages as patients, for they did not pay him—he wished poor and middling classes, from whom he could ask the ready money. Heard liim also declare, that a Capt. Cummins had paid 1000/. to medical men before coming to him; also, that Peter Moore, M. P. had paid 9,001. a year to get quit of a liver complaint till he came to Mm. Mr. Whitlaw declared to patient she could not go through the winter unless she took the vapour-bath constantly. Four respectable medical men at this time saw the patient, and declared the vapour- * Let no one startle at this.—Mr. Whitlaw declared, before several of his Committee, that be could dissolve urinary calculus by a vegetable infusion.
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