The events disclosed during the late trial in the Court of King's
Bench, must fill every well-disposed mind with astonishment and
horror. The moral aspect of the case is marked by every feature
capable of exciting a sense of shame for our profession, and of
sorrow for our kind. Can it be that a publication conducted in the
spirit of the extracts produced at the late trial of Cooper against
Wakley should be fostered and encouraged by a large proportion of
the medical public? Is it indeed true that no feeling of loathing
and disgust should have induced the purchasers of the Lancet to
protest against its glaring injustice, its undisguised ferocity and
malignity?
I am not a reader of that work myself, and but for the disclosures
recently made in our courts of justice, together with what I have
learned from your own pages, I should know little about it. Some
of its early numbers convinced me that it was a production not
deserving of support, whatever ability there might be connected
with it; subsequent events have amply justified this decision, and
I now address these few hasty lines to you, to express my humble
hope that all the respectable medical men throughout the kingdom
will arise, and with one voice oppose this moral pestilence, which
at once corrupts and degrades their profession.
The _odium medicum_, bitter and vindictive as it unfortunately has
been, never, I believe, appeared in a form so repulsive. Are we
living in the nineteenth century? Have arts and sciences, which
are asserted of old to soften the manners and temper the violence
of our nature, produced no such fruits amongst us? Is serious, and
perhaps irremediable injury, to be inflicted on reputation; and is
the sufferer thereafter to be dared to mortal combat, and this too
by the wrong-doer? Is it thus that professional justice is to be
awarded? Is it thus that knowledge is to be advanced, the dignity
of our profession to be maintained, its benefits enlarged, and
its usefulness transmitted? Is it thus that the young men are to
be taught how to acquire an unworthy and discreditable notoriety;
to disregard all the decencies, charities, and higher virtues
of life; and to bring into the exercise of our art the insidious
cunning of the knave, the vulgar dishonesty of the pilferer, and
the audacious bearing of the bravo?
I know not how others may feel on the present occasion: I am
entirely unacquainted with the parties who have been at issue in
the late suit--I have no bias of any kind, but what must arise in
the mind of every man who has any regard for the profession to
which he belongs, or who loves truth and fair dealing--I am sure
that it is not less for the interests of society at large than for
the advancement of medical science, that just principles should
regulate all our dealings, both with the public and with each
other. It is manifest that of late we have signally and woefully
departed from them; and it is most distressing to know that this
departure has been sanctioned by so many members of the profession.
I now entertain a confident hope that all who reflect on the
character of the late libel will feel that their own _character_ is
at stake if they do not mark their disapprobation of it in every
possible way. Sure I am that, if the principles which guide the
Lancet become generally acceptable, it will mark an æra of moral
degradation which no surgical dexterity, no medical acquirements,
however eminent, could possibly redeem.