[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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    2. In the postscript to your last note (April 20th), you reiter- ate, most unadvisedly, what you had stated before, that my letter to you contains some mistakes; and, in support of this statement, you select for refutation one of these mistakes, as, to use your own lan- guage, too egregious to pass over. Let me quote your own obser- vations in your own words. You (Dr Simpson) say, in reference to the writing of Mr Hardie's letter,—'I sat down, and stated the particulars, as he mentioned them to me ;' the fact being quite otherwise, as you well know. By such tactics, believe me, you will not succeed in shifting' on me, or on any one else, the ' painful and humiliating' charge of unprofessional conduct, which is lying upon yourself.—[See p. 20.] It is painful for me to prove, that you must have known this egregious mistake of mine, not to be such ; and that the unusual language in which you choose to speak of it, was quite unjustified and unjustifiable. In fact, your averment on the matter is a deliber- ate statement of what is not true. Two persons only were present at the meeting in my house between Mr Hardie and me,—viz., Mr Hardie and myself. In my last letter to you, I stated under what circumstances the letter from Mr Hardie to me was written. My word was so far pledged for the truth of that report. The other party, Ml* Hardie, carefully read over the whole of the paragraph in my letter to you regarding our meeting in my house, including the part which you aver contained a mis-statement on my part (see my former letter to you); and immediately he made and signed the following declaration of his belief, that my report, not only on the one point, but on all the points, was an accurate report of the res gestce of our meeting. Mr Hardie states, that on reading over the paragraph* in Dr Simpson's letter to Professor Miller, of 17th April, beginning,' I gave Mr Hardie,' and down to ' have been done,'—that the paragraph contains a correct state- ment of the circumstances of their meeting and writing the letter alluded to ill the paragraph at Dr Simpson's house, as far as he recollects. (Signed) Wm. Hakdie. • John Robertson, witness.''' W. T. Jamieson, witness. I gladly leave this document and its painful exposition of the untrue character of your strongest averment, without one word of comment. Evidence has been offered me regarding some of your other minor averments, about the cause and occasion of your visit to Mr Hardie's * Sec this paraj^ruph in full in p. IG.