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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    literature have been appreciated, and that in the main our publications have been approved. Beginning- with Dr. C. J. B. Williams, our first President, we have had in Sir Thomas Watson, Sir James Paget, Sir George Burrows, Mr. Caesar Hawkins, Sir Prescott Hewett, Mr. Hilton, Dr. Peacock, Dr. Stokes, Sir W. Gull, Sir W. Bowman, and Sir Andrew Clark, a series of presidents who have all taken a. vigorous interest in the Society's welfare. They have been constantly aided by members of the Council equally willing to devote time and labour to its interests. Of treasurers we have- had but two. Up to the time of his death the duties of this post were discharged by the late Dr. Barlow; and for the last twenty years the Society has owed more than I can say to the alike able and indefatigable services of our present treasurer. Dr. Sedgwick Saunders. In its management, the Society has always- aimed carefully at economy. Its expenses under the head of Depot, including agent's salary, distribution of books, and advertisements, have seldom been so much as a fifth part of the income, and often not a sixth. Our local secretaries have always given their valuable services gratuitously ; and those services have, I know, often been very laborious. I now come to the point to which I am especially desirous to- ask general attention. It is this: that the Society is an organi- sation for the mutual advantage of its members; and that not only is its scope enlarged by increase of members, but that it. gains directly in its capabilities of usefulness. With a small members' list, only a small series of books for the year can be issued ; and with a larger one, that annual number is at once increased. It is, therefore, the direct interest of all members to endeavour to enlist others. When once the type for a book is set up, or the stone prepared for a plate, it costs very little to print off an extra thousand. If our members' list could be kept permanently at about four thousand, we could issue six volumes regularly every year with ease. I feel sure that this number might without difficulty be attained if once its desirability were widely recognised. In the hope of offering attractions to those who have not joined us, permit me to enter into a little detail as to the works which we have now in preparation. Our Lexicon of Medical Terms, under the editorship of Mr. Power and Dr. Sedgwick, has now advanced fully half-way to completion, and its editors promise us to finish it in four years. I hesitate not to assert that, when finished, it will be, for completeness and conciseness, without its equal in any language. The two large volumes to which it has already attained extend to the letter H, and constitute, even as they are, a most valuable addition to the practitioner's library. New subscribers will be allowed to procure these two volumes as the equivalents of two years' subscription. Of our Atlas of Pathology, a sixth fasciculus is now nearly