A letter addressed to the Earl of Rosse, President-Elect of the Royal Society / by Marshall Hall.

  • Marshall Hall
Date:
October 1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter addressed to the Earl of Rosse, President-Elect of the Royal Society / by Marshall Hall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the Royal Society had worn themselves out, during the long term of ten years between 1837 and 1847, I again presented a paper in the latter year. It was a paper containing the detail of many experiments of the utmost difficulty and nicety; experiments relating to the influence of galvanism, first, on muscular nerves; secondly, on the spinal marrow ; and thirdly, on incident nerves ; experiments, two thirds of which, X be¬ lieve, no one could perform but myself, and which no one certainly ever had performed ; experiments of great value to pathology, but of which my judges do and can know nothing ; experiments, finally, of which no one could judge without witnessing them. Yet were these experiments rejected un¬ witnessed ! One referee and reporter has since confessed that he misunderstood my paper, and this even as to its principal term, electrogenic. One fact in particular I withhold with the utmost difficulty; but I do and will withhold it, except from your Lordship’s private ear. My task is finished. The honour of the Royal Society, of your Lordship, of the Council, of the Fellows at large, of those who have received its honours especially, is deeply involved in the statements I have made. The wrong done to me is also a wrong done to Anatomy and Physiology; and rumours are now afloat of an attempt to re¬ move this exalted science from the Royal Society altogether! This discredit, this injury, this meditated treason, we owe to such deeds and such doers of them as I have exposed in this letter. The original founders of the Royal Society were chiefly physicians, who have ever been ardent in the pursuit of “ natural knowledge/5 It is only recently that they have, in the Royal Society, brought discredit on their profession, their science, and their name. I can only conclude with one expression, that of my deep and sincere regret that I ever submitted my labours for ad¬ judication by the Council of the Royal Society of London ! Finally—Why do I address your Lordship ? Is it that I expect or even wish for any reparation of these wrongs in. my own case ? No ! But I wish to leave these facts on record, to
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