The New Sydenham Society : a letter to the editor of the Lancet.

  • Hutchinson, Jonathan, Sir, 1828-1913.
Date:
[1886]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The New Sydenham Society : a letter to the editor of the Lancet. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    \^\cjJ7Cfilcajiuiii inc i^Aiw^iLi, y/t/ic i^i/i, iuu\j. A Letter to the Editor of the Lancet. Sir, I have been requested by the Council of the New Sydenham Society to seek your aid in bringing under the notice ■of those of your readers who are not its members a few facts as to our past history, present condition, and future prospects. We are now in the middle of our twenty-eighth financial year (our financial year dating from January to December, subscrip- tions being due in advance, and our year of issue being from June to June). Our twenty eighth year of issue of books ■begins this month, and the first volume of the year is in course of distribution to our members. It consists of a volume of short ■essays and papers, chiefly from German sources, on the Rela- tions of Micro-parasites to Disease, and it will be followed in the course of a month by the twelfth part of our Lexicon of Medical Terms. We commence this year several new works, and the present is therefore an excellent opportunity for new members to join us. The hope of inducing a large number to •do so is, let me say at once, my motive in asking insertion for this letter. During our twenty-eight years of work we have enjoyed an income varying from £2000 to £3500, and have had a members' list which has averaged 3000. Of some of our more important -works—such, for instance, as Trousseau's Clinical Medicine— -we have been the means of sending abroad amongst the pro- fession, in all parts of the world, not fewer than 4000 copies. The volume which is now going out counts as our 115th, which gives an average of considerably more than four volumes to each year. I must explain that in this calculation the parts of •our Lexicon, and the fasciculi of our two Atlases, count as volumes. In each of the three years, 1880, 1881, and 1882, we issued six volumes, whilst on three occasions, one of which was last year, we have been obliged, by the state of our funds, to be content with only three. The two other years when this hap- pened were 1863 and 1865. When I add that we have but seldom issued thin volumes, that we have been liberal in wood- cuts and lithographs, and that we have had constantly in hand a very expensive Atlas (first one of Dermatology, and now one of General Pathology,) and more recently a yet more expensive Lexicon of Medical Terms, I think I shall have justified the claim that we have achieved a very considerable amount of suc- cess. The maintenance of such a members' list, through so long a series of years, proves that our efforts to provide sound medical