[Private correspondence addressed to Members of the Grand Committee of the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital concerning the Committee's refusal, in 1815, to allow Currey to deliver a course of medical lectures at St. Thomas's Hospital] / [by] George Gilbert Currey.

  • Currey, George Gilbert, -1822.
Date:
[1820]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: [Private correspondence addressed to Members of the Grand Committee of the Governors of St. Thomas's Hospital concerning the Committee's refusal, in 1815, to allow Currey to deliver a course of medical lectures at St. Thomas's Hospital] / [by] George Gilbert Currey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

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    e ■j 40, HALFMOON STREET, ^ebmary-^th, 1820. I TAKE the liberty of laying before you, as a Member of the Grand Committee of the Governors of St. Thomas’s Hospital, the following statement:—It is my intention, upon the first oppor- tunity which offers, to bring the subject regularly before the Committee; in the mean time I am desirous of putting you in possession of certain facts, by which you may be enabled, I trust, to form some judg- ment of the merits of the case. In the first place I beg to submit to your perusal, the copy of a letter which I addressed to the Committee, in November 1815. Gentlemen, THE object of my thus calling your attention, is to state, that it has long been my wish, and is my present intention to give a Course of Medical Lectures at St. Thomas’s Hospital, if 1 should be fortunate enough to obtain your sanction to have the use, either of the Theatre, or any other part of the Hospital, you may think most proper for that purpose. My requesting a permission, so conformable to the practice of every other Hospital, appears to me so reasonable, that, except for the abruptness of the conclusion, I feel I might almost here leave the business in your hands. However, as I have made my wishes known to the Treasurer, and have not been successful in obtaining his approbation, it becomes necessary to enter a little further on the subject. It is well known that my late very learned Preceptor, Dr. Fordyce, gave Lectures for many years. Dr. Wells had often declared, that when Dr. Fordyce should relinquish them, he would himself give Lectures, and accordingly, upon the decease of Dr. Fordyce, signified his intention to the Treasurer, which was very favourably received; after a short interval however some obstacles were started by the latter, in consequence of which Dr. Wells provided himself with a Lecture Room, out of the Hospital, and published Proposals for a Course of Lectures, and we have to regret, that ill health prevented him from prosecuting his purpose. I then applied to the Treasurer, really thinking that all difficulties might easily be removed, but met with an absolute refusal to permit me to use any part of the Hospital as a Lecture Room. Within these few days I have renewed the application, and with the same result. The objections, which have been offered, are, first, that Dr. Fordyce lectured only at his own house, implying that he would not have been, or absolutely was not, permitted to lecture at the Hospital: my reply is, Dr. Fordyce actually did for some time give Clinical Lectures in, what is called, the Doctor’s Room,—that he never conceived any obstacle stood in his way to continue so to lecture, and that his lecturing at his own house was solely to suit his own convenience. Again, it has been said, that Dr. Fordyce and Dr. Saunders entered into an agreement, that the former should not lecture at St. Thomas’s; So far from this being the case, Dr. Fordyce uniformly, and unequivocally denied the fact, and such agreement, if it had existed, could be binding only between the two parties. Connected with this is the second objection, viz. that there is a division of Lectures between the two Hospitals, the Medical Lectures being at Guy’s, and the Anatomical at St. Thomas’s. It is easy to reply to this, that Mr. Cooper divides the latter Lectures with Mr. Cline, and that supposing such an arrange- ment satisfactory to the Physicians of the one, and the Surgeons of the other Hospital, yet, vice versa, it presents a perpetual Bar to the other Physicians and Surgeons. In truth the existence of any arrange- ment has as little foundation in fact, as it has in justice. Nor does the injustice stop here. A Gentleman, Mr. Allen, wholly unconnected with either Hospital, is associated in the Chemical Lectures. It is no answer to plead the qualifications which he possesses; I am most ready to acknowledge them, at the same time, I should hope every well educated Physician was so grounded in the Principles of Chemistry,