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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    this is a matter that ouglit to have been set forth in the record if it was to be insisted in. What is proposed, to be done, is this, to read per saltum ])assages from a book published we know not when, in order to show that these passages were the inductive cause of that attack. Instead of that being stated in the record. I read the record in the reverse way. Mr. Syme writes to the editor of the London Medical GazeUe in these words I have ' only to-day happened to see your Joui-nal of May 16th, which ' contains some statements that certainly should not have remained ' so long unnoticed, if they had been known to me sooner. * You say ' a fierce paper war has arisen between the two Edin- ' ' burgh professors, Syme and Lizarsbut you must, or at least ' ought to know, that I have not addressed a single word to the * 80-caUed 'professor.' ' Within the last eight months I have performed this operation ' nine times in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, in presence of ' the largest class of surgical clinical students in her Majesty's * dominions,' &c. &c. Then in the Edinburgh perioclical, he quotes the words within brackets, which were omitted by the editor of the London Medical Gazette. Mr. Lizars had nothing to do with the review alluded to in that Journal. Admittedly, the second edition of Mr. Lizars' book is published months before this 16th day of May, and does not lead to this libel. Neither the one edition of the book nor the other leads to this Ubel. The thing that leads to it, is the article of the 16th May, therefore this record excludes any state- ment in the book published by Mr. Lizars as giving rise to the attack on him in this letter. If that be so, will you allow a party, under cover, and pretence of doing a thing set forth in the record, to show that that book was the cause of that attack. I am not willing to make any technical objection, nor to exclude any thing on technical grounds, but I submit, that we are not to go into any thing that is contrary to the good faith and justice of the caSe. Solicitor-Geneual —I maintain that I am entitled to have this book put in evidence. It is extraordinary that the pursuer should object to his own book being put in evidence. Look at liis statement in the adjusted revised condescendence, 'the pursuer, ' early in the present year, 1851, published a treatise, &c.' Has that any thing to do with the present ease or not? I submit that it plainly has. Come to article 3 —' The pursuer's treatise