The Dublin hospitals : their grants and governing bodies / by E.D. Mapother.

  • Edward Mapother
Date:
1869
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Dublin hospitals : their grants and governing bodies / by E.D. Mapother. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    IMr. pAViD Ross, LL.B, said lie did not agree with the proposition that this was a mere question wliich concerned only the ins and outs. He thought thatthe hospitals to which £20,000 were paid from public and private taxes were institutions in the management of which the public were interested in a high degree. The question was, whether the poor should not have the attendance of the best medical menl It was not a mere Hades’ union question. He did not see any jus- tification for a system by which a man was elected to important si- tuations because he inherited money from his father. He believed that a reliable examination could take place, and that the competi- tion for a situation in an hospital could be carried on legitimately. He objected to a man in the position of Sir Dominic Corrigan, and with his liberality of view, supporting the purchase system. Mr. Ross then pointed out that the purchase system in the army had been reported against, and that the staff appointments and commis- sions in the engineers were now obtained by the competitive system. He maintained that the sooner the medical profession gave up the money test for the merit test the better for the profession and the public. In reference to the giving of testimonials in a common form to young medical men he observed that the men in position in the profession did a grievous wrong. The country should not be flooded with unscrupulous testimonials. It was impossible as long as the purchase system prevailed to prevent higgling and bargaining for the situations obtainable under that system. Mr. Randal McDonnell, Q.C. said that he rose to make a few observations, as he had been struck by the way in Avhich some argu- ments used by supporters of the purchase system conflicted with and, as it were, neutralised others. One of their arguments as put by Mr. Shaw, had struck him as having some force—namely, that pur- chase produced early retirements, and in consequence, a constant influx of young talent and energy to supply the vacancies thus caused; but Sir D. Corrigan had struck this argument down, in the convincing portion of his speech where he declared that the loss by early retirement of men who had reached the full maturity of their experience, would be a grave misfortune alike to the ])upil and the jjatient. Again : one gentleman had just urged that it was a position good for a young man of talent but no means to have, to prove his capacitj’’ by gaining public confidence, and, having accumulated the price, to buy his hospital; but to tliis Sir D. Corrigan had supplied a complete answer, when he said that hospital practice was a thing which if not enjoyed at the commencement of a young man’s career, was never learned at all. But the grand argument on the subject was one which Sir D. Corrigan had not touched—namely, that this purchase system laid a prohibitory duty upon talent. Ibis was no question of medical knowledge, but of political economy and com- mon sense. If half the young medical men of Dublin—and with Mr. Shaw he believed there were more—were absolutely disqualified because they had not the necessary £500 or £1,000, then it was plain that the cause of this exclusion, namely, the system of purchase, deprived the jioor and the student alike of the aid of the more gifted minds in the half thus disqualified. At this moment a most
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