Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham.

Date:
[1857]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statement of the professors, and other documents relating to the recent election of Mr. Gamgee to the office of surgeon to the Queen's Hospital, Birmingham. 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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    Professors. This is clearly shown by the reflection that the whole Council, or a majority, may enter the Council Chamber with a strong prepossession obtained out of doors in favour of a particular candidate, and this candidate they may be unable, by any stride of authority, to support, because his name is not in the Report! The Professors revert with unfeigned reluctance to the circumstance that this would literally have been the state of afl'airs on the 14th of October last, when, for the first time in the history of the College, a gentleman was inadvertently elected to fill a medical appointment, in opposition to the strong and conscientious recommendation of the Founder and Professors. That gentleman's name was alphabetically arranged with five others, as qualified and eligible. The framers of this Eeport did not then adequately appreciate the injustice thus done to several other candidates, by arranging together, as if on the possession of equal claims, the names of gentlemen whose merits were so different. Bat though literally the name of Mr. West appeared in the Report on that day, it was not before the Council in the sense contemplated by law, inasmuch as the three words qualified, eligible, and best fitted were predicated of one candidate only—namely, Mr. Gamgee; and the other portion of the Report, of the nature of a preamble, in which all the candidates were placed without selection, was mere surplusage. The law seems to require tlie Professors to present to the Council at least two candidates, but in all previous elections they have been permitted to undertake the responsibility of recommending one only. There was never so good a reason for this practice as during the late election, when they felt themselves called upon to give the strongest recommendation of Mr. Gramgee. It may be now stated that had the Council claimed the right to demand from the Professors the re-consideration of their Report, with the view of obtaining the names of those who appeared to be the best fitted among the six candidates, that result could have been attained without difficulty, but the object of the majority of the Covmcil, on the 14th of October, would not have been brought nearer, for the Professors are bound by every incentive which can operate upon men of honour to declare those only, of given candidates, the best fitted, who are best fitted in fact. Such then was the object of the establishment of the Queen's Hospital, and such was the method determined upon by the authorities of the College for the filling up of its medical appointments. To the former the Pro- fessors feel they can point with just pride, as having not merely fulfilled, to a high degree, its educational object, but as having been the means of con- ferring inestimable benefits upon the afflicted in the town and adjoining districts. They know that these benefits have been equally appreciated by the poor upon whom they have been bestowed, and by those Governors who have made themselves acquainted with the daily working of the Insti- tution. Education has been raised, but charity has not been forgotten. On the contrary, scientific instruction has thrown in its bright contribution to the common cause of humanity. The difficult problem, difficult even in the metropolis, of the maintenance in a flourishing condition of an hospital, whose primary aim was scholastic, has been successfully solved in Bir- mingham. Those munificent clergymen, eminent noblemen, and philan- thropic merchants, who, in 1840, resolved, under the direction of a