Specimen sheet. The American Medical Library and Intelligencer : a concentrated record of medical science and literature / edited by G.S. Pattison, M.D. and R. Dunglison, M.D.

Date:
[1836]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Specimen sheet. The American Medical Library and Intelligencer : a concentrated record of medical science and literature / edited by G.S. Pattison, M.D. and R. Dunglison, M.D. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    7/20
    To Dr. Granville S. Pattisori, Philadelphia. Washington, 9th October, 1836. Sir :—I have received and noted the contents of your letter of the 1st. I regret to learn that the irregularity of the publication of the Register, &c. should [have] done you a professional injury ; and more regret that your time has been so much occupied in more profitable pursuits, as to prevent you giving that attention to your department of the work, which was promised to the public, and the failure of which has no doubt done you as well as myself more injury than the delay in the publication of the work, which has always been waiting on you. I state this not by way of recrimination, but because I can see in your letter—that having resolved to establish a rival work, you assume the position stated more in reference to the future than the past. It is proper that I should at once put you right on another point—we do not hold equal property in the work. It has been got up at my risk, and at an expense of more than twelve thousand dollars to me ; which expense and risk were mine, and which, together with the entire cost of publication, are to be first paid to me before your inte¬ rest commences; and then you are to have one half of the profits for and in considera¬ tion of your services as editor. Now when your services as editor cease, your com¬ pensation and interest in the publication cease with it. I regret that I am about to leave home under circumstances which forbid delay, my daughter’s health requiring me to attend her south. I will direct the account to be stated, and if you will do me the favour to say what amount you have received on account of subscriptions, I will on my return, on the first of December, be prepared for a settlement, and willing to leave the whole matter between us to the decision of disinterested persons. Respectfully, your obedient servant, D. GREEN. You will, I think, gentlemen, admit, that the answer to my letter was not such a one as I was entitled to expect. I wrote to the publisher in the most friendly spirit; I stated a fact, the irregularity of the publication of the journal, which neither he nor any other person could gainsay ; I did not even insinuate any blame to him for the want of punctuality in the appearance of the work; on the contrary, I attributed the irregularity of publication to the editor’s resid¬ ing at a distance from the city where the journal was published. “ As it is impossible,” I said, “to have the work done justice to, the editor residing in Philadelphia and the publisher in Washington City, I had determined to retire,” Having delicately guarded even against hinting at any blame on his part, he was certainly not justified in attempting to charge me with being the cause of the irregularity complained of by the subscribers, and to state that “ the work has always been waiting on you.” It is very strange, that the publisher should make such a statement in his letter addressed to me on the 9th October, and should, on the 17th of the same month, eight days after¬ wards, announce to the subscribers that “ the remaining numbers of the present volume are already stereotyped.” If the remaining numbers of the volume, seventeen in number, are already stereotyped, surely neglect on the part of the editor cannot be the cause of no number having appeared for the last seven months. In reference to the observations made in the letter of the publisher, in re¬ gard to the pecuniary concerns of the publication,—as these have no interest for the subscribers, I shall not discuss them. I shall only remark, that although by our agreement I was to receive one half of the profits of the publication, so indifferent have I felt in reference to my pecuniary interests, that I have never yet asked the publisher to make a settlement with me, nor have I received from him one dollar since the journal was established. The only money I have ever received for my services, was the few subscriptions paid into my own hands.