Homoeopathy : report of the speeches on irregular practice delivered at the Nineteenth Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, held at Brighton, August 13 & 14, 1851.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Homoeopathy : report of the speeches on irregular practice delivered at the Nineteenth Anniversary Meeting of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, held at Brighton, August 13 & 14, 1851. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    really stands ? I am glad to have an opportunity of doing so, as I know that there are in many quarters inaccurate ideas prevail- ing. This is the state of the case :—The Medical Faculty of the University and the CoUege of Physicians are two entu-ely distinct bodies. The members of the former are not the patrons of the Chairs of Medicine, and they have no power to remove Dr. Hen- derson fi-om the Chair of Pathology—that privilege can only be exercised by the patrons, the Town Council. The Medical Faculty, however, have done all they can to prevent Dr. Hen- derson from poisoning the minds of the students. They, by their influence with the Managers of the Infirmary, and their control over the department of clinical teaching, at once, on his heresy becoming known, removed him from teaching and practis- ing in the clinical wards; and I can state, on the best authority, that Dr. Henderson has not dared to teach homoeopathy in his chair of Pathology, in the University. The resolutions of the Edinburgh College of Physicians are, I am told, making some impression upon the patrons, who ought now to see that there is staring them in the face the ruin of the Medical School of Edinburgh, and with it of the University. I trust that the news of the enthusiasm and unanimity of this day may reach Edinburgh, and do some good. If the members of the Association wish to aid in relieving the University of Edinburgh—^the Alma Mater of many now present—from an encumbrance, they must adopt this Report in its integrity. [Cheers.[ Dr. Cowan, of Eeading, said :—Allow me. Sir, to make a few observations in favour of the adoption of this Report. I am not a raw recruit in the anti-quackery ranks, having for many years done my utmost to expose and denounce the numerous delusions of the day, especially those affecting our own noble science. I am rejoiced to see the hearty and healthfvd tone of feeling with which the Report has been received; for it appears to me most proper and most important for this Association to take the present opportunity of pronouncing its formal and its unanimous [cheers] rejection of homoeopathy. The increase of homoeopathy, I look upon with a very grave view—I regard it as one of those porten- tous moral phenomena which are stealing over the age. It is not the practice of medicine only that is at stake—^it is the practice of sound thinking. When we supplant by mushroom theories truths
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