[Correspondence between Dr J.Y. Simpson, Dr Robert Christison, Professor James Miller, and others].

  • Miller James, 1812-1864.
Date:
[1852]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Correspondence between Dr J.Y. Simpson, Dr Robert Christison, Professor James Miller, and others]. 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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    your letter of yesterday, in addition to this, you confess that you yourself subsequently acted as the medium of communicating this in- formation to the homoeopathic physician in question, who, as I have said, afterwards busily promulgated it on—the upholsterer's authority. The history of the whole matter, for sometime after this, is con- tained in my two letters to Dr Christison of the 20 th March; and in my two recent notes to you of the 14th and 15th April; so that it is needless to recapitulate it. VMien, a few days back, I first heard that you and Dr Duncan were acting in the matter with a view of exculpating yourselves, I own I did feel at a loss to imagine what kind of defence you would attempt. I was told in one quarter that, in the way of extenuation, it was averred that Mr Hardie's letter to me was improperly forced from him; and I was told again, that it would be proved that Mr Hardie had volunteered to you the report which you had propa- gated; and that though you had promulgated, on the authority of an upholsterer, a report calculated to injure me, you had not, as was averred, stooped to extract your information from the upholsterer himself, by directly questioning him on the subject. Dr Christison's note to me of Wednesday night, incidentally showed me that such was actually the line of defence which you had at that time assumed. In consequence of this, and thinking it possible that Mr Hardie, a tradesman of Dr Duncan's and yours, might have been induced to retract some of his statements, I forthwith waited upon him (as I informed you in my last note); and that there might be no subsequent ambiguity, I took with me ]Mr Robertson, S.S.C. Mr Hardie had evidently been beset regarding the matter, and regarding his letter and statements. But the following minute of our meeting, and of his statements at it, was drawn up by Mr Robertson, and subsequently signed by Mr Hardie, and by his son Alexander Hardie and Mr Robertson, as witnesses. Mr Hardie says, that Dr Simpson must have misunderstood him, when he states in his letter to Dr Christison, ' in giving me this letter, Mr H. ' expressed great and honest indignation at two medical gentlemen coming to him, a tradesman, stealthily to get information, for the purpose of using it in the way they had used it.' Mr Hardie says, that this paragraph ^yants the word ' if.' In Mr Hardie's letter to Dr Simpson, there occurs the expression, ' which I thought to have been the result of bleeding at the arm for this in- flammation.' Mr Hardie thinks that this is a medical opinion, which he was ' not entitled to give, and that he does, and can, give no opinion as to the cause of the staining on the mattress.' Mr Hardie states, that Dr Simpson did not in the slightest way force the Jetter from him;—that two or three days before it was written, Air H. pro-