Dr. Blundell's third letter to his medical friends.

  • Blundell, Dr., 1790-1878.
Date:
[1834]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Blundell's third letter to his medical friends. 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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    \V7‘ ' V DE. BLUNDELL S Cljttll fUtttt? TO HIS MEDICAL FRIENDS. Gentlemen,—A second letter having issued under the signature of my late as- sistant, in which he engages to verify the assertions contained in his first, by evidence taken from my own letters, I think it but due respect to the opinion of my friends to point out, paragraph by paragraph, the fal- lacies which it contains. As in doing this 1 shall frequently be under the necessity of alluding to both his letters, perhaps those who do me the honour of a perusal will take the trouble of keeping those two documents continually open before them.* The first of these statements of the writer was not, as misquoted in his second letter (Lancet, p. 259), that in 1829-30 he “ was requested by Dr. Blundell to give clinical instruction to his pupils,” but that “ in 1829-30, in consequence of new arrangements which then took place, he was ” so requested. (Lancet, p. 78.) This I again assert is not true. In consequence of the new arrangements, Mr. Doubleday, as stated in my first letter, was solely engaged to undertake the important task of giving clinical instructions to the whole class throughout, which he did with vigour and effect, and the writer of the letter was merely one of the Consulting Surgeon-Ac- coucheurs to a small portion of the general district; this too by his own wish, and not at my request, as the other five gentlemen were. So that to assert that in consequence of new arrangements, and by my request, he at this time was appointed to give clini- cal instructions is uutrue ; there were in this matter, touching him, no new arrange- ments ; no request was made, and no such appointment took place. 2ndly. It was not asserted by Dr. Blun- dell that the writer was disqualified for the important duty assigned to Mr. Doubleday, because he was engaged in giving assistance to the rival class “ of Messrs. Grainger and Pilcher” in Wehb-street. Had this been the case, there would have been more fitness in the decisive answer of Mr. Pilcher. My words were (see 2nd letter, Lancet, p. 207) “ engaged in giving assistance to the rival class in Webb-street,”—viz. the obstetric class—not the class of Messrs. Grainger and Pilcher, who were the anatomical and not the obstetric teachers in that school, a fact which necessarily weakens the force of Mr. P.’s evidence in the matter. Now Mr. Pilcher, on whose honour I have a full reliance, has authorized me to state, that although he does not himself believe that the writer gave assistance in more than two cases, in which he would have been wanting in humanity had he failed to act when called upon ; yet that he Mr. P. is not prepared to assert that he must of necessity have known of all the cases in which such assistance was given. The truth is, and 1 had the statement so as to produce a full impression on my mind, that occasional help was afforded by the writer to the pupils of that school, in cases of difficult delivery, in more than one or two instances, and that the practice was likely to becontinued; nor hadltheleastrighttocom- plain of this, though in prudence I deemed it fitting to engage, for the purposes above- mentioned, an accurate and active friend, equally able, and I believe wholly uncon- nected with the rival class in the neighbour- hood. That I might be deceived in this impression as to the extent of the services rendered is very possible ; Mr. Pilcher s letter goes some way to render it probable ; A See Appendix.