Letter to the fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh, respecting the proposal to abolish the Chair of General Pathology in the University / [William Thomson].

  • Thomson, William, 1802-1852.
Date:
1837
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the fellows of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons of Edinburgh, respecting the proposal to abolish the Chair of General Pathology in the University / [William Thomson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    88 you should deduce from this statement are, firsts that those with whom the responsibility rests, of having recommended, and of having created, the Chair of General Pathology in the University of Edinburgh, are not amenable to those cen¬ sures which they have incurred at the hands of persons not possessing the information requisite to enable them to form a correct judgment upon the subject; and, secondly, that were the Town Council to apply to you for your opinion as to the expediency of the Chair being now abolished, it would, in the event of your entertaining the question at all, be your duty to dissuade them from such a measure. I must now bring the present Letter to a close. In the discussion of the general question at issue, I have most care¬ fully abstained from noticing several topics of an irritating character, which the recent proposal of the Medical Faculty respecting the Pathology chair, is calculated to suggest, and upon which, on a suitable occasion, I should have been most desirous fully and freely to express my sentiments. But I have been unwilling to endanger any force which the pre¬ ceding arguments might appear to you to possess, by inter¬ mingling with them such observations as, had I entered at all on these unpleasant topics, it would have been impossible for me to abstain from making. I shall only add, that, whoever the person may be who shall be selected by the Patrons to fill the Chair of General Pathology, that circumstance will make no alteration in my opinions with regard to the pro¬ priety of its creation and maintenance. I have the honour to be. Gentlemen, Your most obedient humble Servant, WILLI A.M THOMSON, M. D. 80 George Street, Edinburgh, 25/4 July 18.'i7.
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