John Lizars, Esq, surgeon, against James Syme, Esq., surgeon, Monday, 26th July 1852 : (before the Lord Justice-General and a Jury).

Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: John Lizars, Esq, surgeon, against James Syme, Esq., surgeon, Monday, 26th July 1852 : (before the Lord Justice-General and a Jury). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    they were stated as a reason why no direct word was addressed to Mr. Lizars on the subject. Then my learned friends have also in- troduced this next paragraph incidentally in the matter, ' in esti- ' mating the value of my operation, you proceed upon the sup- ' position that the allegations of Mr. Lizars and his assistant Dr. ' MuUer are well founded ; but in fairness to your readers, if not to ' myself, should have mentioned, that the statements of these per- ' sons, in so far as they attribute bad effects to the operations which ' I have performed for the remedy of Stricture by division, have ' been declared by me to be all utterly devoid of truth/ The ' allegations' are the allegations in the book, and are the. allega- tions of Mr. Lizars ; and further, if you look at Article 31, in the Closed Record, you will find this statement, ' In March, 1851, the ' pursuer brought out a second edition of his work.' The Court — You have set forth in the Eecord some of the passages which you wish to read. Solicitor-General — Articles 36 and 37 also are statements of the light in which I regard the passages in this letter. The Court — The question is not as to the value of this evi- dence, but as to its admissibility. Mr. Dbas — I submit, that this is quite clearly out of the ques- tion. The issue is, ' Whether the whole or any part of the said ' article or statement is of and concerning the pursuer, and falsely, ' calumniously, and injuriously represents and holds out the pur- ' suer as a person of disreputable character in his profession, and ' as neither respected nor entitled to respect in the medical pro- ' fession, to the loss and damage of the pursuer?—this is what we undertake to prove. It is of no consequence to that question, in what particular meaning the writer of the letter may define these words; the question is. Whether the words are calculated to represent and hold out the pursuer as a person of disreputable character in his profession, and so and so ? How can it be truly said, that the object of reading passages from a book written by Mr. Lizars, is to show the meaning in which the words in question are to be understood ? I submit that this is quite out of the question. I submit that it is impossible that any thing in the book can throw light on the meaning in which those words would be understood by the public. The more material thing is the next ground, which is, that the book contains an unprovoked attack in every respect on Mr. Syme, and gave rise to the attack made by him on Mr.