Additional letters of a physician on the quality of the St Mary's Loch water / by Charles Wilson.

  • Wilson, Charles, 1804-1883.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Additional letters of a physician on the quality of the St Mary's Loch water / by Charles Wilson. 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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    ON THE QUALITY OF ST MARY’S LOCH WATER. Letter VIII. (From the Scotsman of May 6, 1871.) Edinburgh, May 5, 1871. Sir,—All who take an interest in the vital question which is now agitating the city, and especially those who have honoured the letters of “ A Physician ” with some portion of their confidence, doubtless solely on the score of the numerous facts and high authorities which he has brought into testimony throughout the series, must have had their attention arrested, if not their surprise excited, by a part of the medical evidence which has just been led before the Parliamentary Committee. One witness is reported to have stated, that “whoever the gentleman signing himself ‘A Physician ’ may be, he has no knowledge of medicine, and I will give my reasons for this statement. He says that rickets, the essence of which is softening of the bones, may be produced by the absence of lime in the water drunk by a person suffering from the disease; but those who know anything about the matter are aware that the lime is actually in excess; and that, instead of going to the formation of bone, it is excreted by the kidney, and goes to the bladder.” I have no wish to cavil at the kind of irrelation, gener- ally, that is apparent in this statement. It is sufficient for me, as the writer of the letters, that it asserts that the essence of rickets consists in a softening of the bones, and that lime in the disease is actually in excess; and that not to know, or to assent, to this one portion of knowledge of the theory of a single disease is so complete a criterion that it implies the want of knowledge of all medicine be- sides. The rule in the latter clause of the sentence is not one which I should myself have laid down as either just or logical, whatever may be said of its peculiar courtesy : but, if it be a rule, we shall see afterwards in what direction it applies. When, on Friday last, I first became aware of this statement, it was without the slightest inclination to bestow upon it a moment’s notice. So soon as I saw, however, in the paper of last Tuesday, that the doctrines laid down had not only the assent of Dr Douglas Maclagan, but that still another charge was added to them; and that this accumulating evidence, so peremptorily advanced, had succeeded apparently in shaking, even in the counsel for the rate-