Thomas Beddoes to the Editors of The Monthly Review, 2 October 1799
Gentlemen,
As soon as I was informed by Mr. Hammick of the dangerous erratum of eight for three grains of calomel, p. 38. 1. 9. of the Contributions from the West of England, (see Rev. September, p. 68. 1.3.) I notified it in two Medical Journals, and added the correction to the unsold copies of the book. —I beg you to let this stand as a farther notification —Miss M. Norton is not only living, but, as I heard from good authority, on being threatened with a return of her complaint, received benefit as before from hydrogen gas. —Your observation, on the two cases where hydrocarbonate was used is just. They are-not decisive: but they shew the innocence of the practice; probably however they were not worth publishing. —At the Pneumatic Institution, we shall be unpardonable if our trials do not bear the most rigid scrutiny. In private practice, a complicated treatment is not easily avoided.
I am glad to have the concurrence of the M R. in a proposition so alarmingly important as this, —that the public have not hitherto derived a degree of information from the practice in infirmaries, equal to the trouble and expence bestowed upon them. I am glad also that the writer of the article thinks, with me, that some farther means ought to be adopted for preserving the phenomena observed in these repositories of disease. The mere judgment and activity of the medical attendants are not, as experience shews, sufficient for this great purpose. In observing that my plan is too forcing, I know not if it escaped the critic that I represent it as ‘impracticable till a discovery in physiology should be capable of exciting as warm sensations as a ministerial harangue’. I evidently suppose, all along, that the public must be educated to this scheme. —The Reviewer seems to think that the mixed assemblies would favour cabal. I think just the contrary. —At present, cabal appears to me, at least, to have almost uncontrouled dominion in medicine ; —and though the figure which a physician would cut at the projected meetings would be no absolute criterion of his merit, it would be a much better than any the public now has. Imbecility and mediocrity, so exhibited, would never get to the top of the profession. —All this is mere opinion against opinion; and I rather wonder that I have found so many medical men agreeing with me in the main, than one disagreeing in particulars.
I know not whether the fact respecting the rotation of surgeons at Edinburgh* be as stated in the Review: —but I should suppose the scarcity of dead bodies to be the reason of the inferiority of the Scotch operators, if they be inferior. The French surgeons, as a body, are stated to excel the British in operations; and I suppose for the same reason. In the Review, p. 62. l.20 it seems to be assumed that the hospital functionaries are superior to other physicians and surgeons. This requires to be proved: it is just the point in debate; and, were it so, infirmaries surely ought to have been of more use to medical science and general humanity: for, in our publishing age, few, after having kindled a light with great trouble, would hide it under a bushel. —I look upon my plan as calculated to introduce rather than interrupt observers: —mere opinion again!
Concerning the importance of chemical physiology, I shall have occasion to treat at large in a periodical publication which will shortly be set on foot by Mr. Davy, and myself, along with others. The ingenious member of your corps justly says that the idea is not new: —but (p. 65. 1. 37) he seems to have forgotten that science means an arranged body of facts—His allusion to our knowledge concerning metals does not refute my opinion, though it should be wrong. —We may have many important detached facts, but no science; and, if the actions of the living organs depend simply, as I believe, or in great measure, on their composition, —without advances in chemical physiology, medical science must continue a chimera: an assertion which I repeat after years of anxious consideration.
I am Gentlemen, With great respect for your long and useful labours. Yours,
Thomas Beddoes
2d Oct. 1799
Published: The Monthly Review, 30 (October 1799), 237–38