Controversy on the artificial tympanum / by James Yearsley.

  • James Yearsley
Date:
1858
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Controversy on the artificial tympanum / by James Yearsley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Gazette5 of November 21 st, No. 386. Had his recognition of my claims to an important discovery, and his obligations to that discovery with reference to his own appliance, been made at an earlier period, neither his friends nor mine would have held him in less estimation for his candour and liberality, whilst much unpleasant feeling would have been saved between those who, though competitors in the race for fame, need not and ought not to be enemies. I have said an a instalment of justice,” because until Mr Toynbee embodies in his pamphlet on the Artificial Membrana Tympani, in his paper published in the Transactions of the Royal Society, and in his paper 4 read before the Medical and Chirurgical Society, the pre¬ existence of a similar mode of treatment, having similar objects, and until he places at the disposal of the Council of the Society of Arts a certain medal awarded to him for a discovery made by another, he cannot be fairly said to be free from the imputation of disingenuous conduct towards me. The readers of the papers adverted to could never suppose that the Artificial Membrana Tympani is a mere substitute for another substance which had been proposed, and for years previously successfully adopted by one of the writer’s con¬ temporaries ; but such is the fact, as is now by the force of circumstances admitted by Mr Toynbee. Ambitious of a niche in the Temple of Fame, and firm in the conviction that the day will come when the importance of my discovery will be recognised beyond the circle of my patients, and rank with the greatest of the age, I can lay my hand on my heart, and solemnly declare that I have dealt with it from the first in all honesty, and without the slightest reservation. I have never made the slightest secret of the remedy ; at the fitting moment, that is, when its value had been fully tested, I divulged it to the Profession, and my doors have been ever open to my brethren to witness the practical illustration of the fact. Finally, I beg to assure Mr Toynbee, who alone has insinuated the contrary, that at the time I published my papers in the ‘ Lancet,’ in July 1848, I was not aware that any con¬ firmation of my views existed in the works of Itard, Deleau, or Tod; and in searching for, finding, and myself calling attention to suck confirmation, in the works of the two first- named authors, I little thought that any contemporary would be found so ungenerous as to take advantage of the informa¬ tion given him, to question the originality of my idea, and the treatment founded thereon. The remarkable passage from the work of Mr Tod* came to # Mr Tod was a surgeon practising at 5 Upper Fitzroy street, Fitzroy square, and died about twelve months ago.
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