A corrected report of the speeches delivered by Mr. Lawrence, as chairman, at two meetings of members of the Royal College of Surgeons, held at the Freemasons' Tavern : With an appendix, containing the resolutions agreed to at the first meeting, and some illustrative documents.

  • Sir William Lawrence, 1st Baronet
Date:
1826
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A corrected report of the speeches delivered by Mr. Lawrence, as chairman, at two meetings of members of the Royal College of Surgeons, held at the Freemasons' Tavern : With an appendix, containing the resolutions agreed to at the first meeting, and some illustrative documents. 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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    m to watch over and protect; not only from respect to the memory and fame of his deceased friend and near con- nexion, but from regard to the interests of science, and in execution of his duty as one of the curators of the Museum. The council observe, “ that Mr. Hunter con- sidered these books to be valuable, and not otherwise than creditable to himself, may be inferred from three of them being [having been] placed on the table beside him, when his portrait was painted by Sir Joshua Rey- nolds they add, in respect to the manuscript lectures, that they “cannot believe that Mr. Hunter could intend th ese* works should be burned, as unimportant manu- scripts.” We find also that, although the alleged pro- mise was “ to burn all Mr. Hunter's manuscriptsit has not been hitherto executed, and that two folio vo- lumes, with other papers on morbid anatomy, have for- tunately escaped the flames. In thus plainly stating their opinion that Mr. Hunter could not have intended that his manuscripts should be destroyed, in implying, and more than intimating their belief that no such promise as that alleged by Sir E. Home could have been exacted or given, and conse- quently leading us to infer, that this lamentable destruc- * That the council have judged rightly on this point may be proved by undeniable authority. ee Mr. Hunter now began to prepare the present work for the press, and intended as soon as it was in the hands of the public, to give a course of practical lectures in surgery, for which he had many years been collecting materials; these were so far advanced, that another winter, had he lived, would have finished them. The materials of these lectures having come into my hands; that they may not be entirely lost to the public, I mean to avail myself of them# and am preparing my arrangements for that purpose.”—Life of Mr Hunter by Sir E. Home ; prefixed to the Treatise on the Blood, &c. p. 36. K