A statement of the symptoms for which bleeding was thought necessary and adopted, in the case of the late Mr. Leycester [addressed to Rev. E. Stanley] : in reply to an opinion, put forth by Mr. Holland, that such a step was injudicious / [John Harrison].

  • Harrison, John, 1808 or 1809-1880.
Date:
1835
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A statement of the symptoms for which bleeding was thought necessary and adopted, in the case of the late Mr. Leycester [addressed to Rev. E. Stanley] : in reply to an opinion, put forth by Mr. Holland, that such a step was injudicious / [John Harrison]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of the case has made upon the minds of many people to whom I have no other access than through the medium of my present proceeding, they would natu¬ rally take it for granted that I had no vindication to offer, and (to use the words of Dr. Holland) that Mr. Leycester’s life had been sacrificed by my inju¬ dicious and indiscreet conduct. Happily for me, my treatment of Mr. Leycester has received too high a sanction for all the attempts of Mr. Holland to destroy. I trust I shall be enabled to shew in what I have presently to state, that not only was the bleeding not unnecessary and uncalled for, but that by its omission Mr. Leycester would have fallen a much earlier sacrifice to the complaint than he did ; for with the symptoms which existed at the time that I was called in to see Mr. Leycester, I have no hesitation whatever in stating as my conviction that he could not possibly have existed for very many hours unless relieved by a proper and judicious use of the lancet. In confirmation of this opinion, I shall here take the opportunity of stating what I have Dr. Robinson’s authority for doing,—that any thing short of the measures which were adopted in the first instance would have been a highly culpable omission, and that had he not likewise been bled, it would have been both a scandal and disgrace to the pro- fesssion. I shall here quote a passage from a letter of Dr. Robinson’s, which I received subsequent to Mr. Leycester’s death, in reply to one which contained a mere announcement of Mr. Leycester’s decease, without any allusion whatever to the