A letter to Sir Henry Halford, Bart., K.C.H., President of the Royal College of Physicians, &c. &c. &c. touching some points of the evidence, and observations of counsel, on a commission of lunacy on Mr. Edward Davies / by G. Man Burrows.

  • Burrows, George Man, 1771-1846.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Sir Henry Halford, Bart., K.C.H., President of the Royal College of Physicians, &c. &c. &c. touching some points of the evidence, and observations of counsel, on a commission of lunacy on Mr. Edward Davies / by G. Man Burrows. 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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    of the 21st ofDecember last, there appeared a sentence which I have reason to think that gentleman never uttered. This has made a deeper impression to my disadvantage than any thing else that has been said, and therefore especially de- mands my notice. In addressing the court, Mr. Brougham is made to say : He (Dr. Burrows) told you that, not having seen Mr. Davies for ten days, he nevertheless dared to sign the certificate. Serious as the consequences of this extraordinary interpo- lation have proved to me, yet they are short of what I should have deserved, had I done what is here said, and had I had the effrontery afterwards to acknowledge it to a British jury. Some weeks elapsed before I could learn whether Mr. Brougham actually spoke this sentence. Having ascertained that he said no such thing, I was far from imputing to the Editor of so respectable a Journal a knowledge of so aggra- vated a circumstance. But I felt anxious to prevent the repetition of such calumny; and for this purpose I addressed the letter to the editor of The Times, which will be found in the Appendix (No. 8). It met with no reply. Hence the reader will draw his own inferences. Before the impression left on the public mind by these events had abated, it was my misfortune to be compelled to give evidence in the Court of King's Bench respecting the state of mind of another individual. This is the cause to which I have also referred in the same letter, as another instance of uncandid dealing with me. Influenced by the same bad spirit, in commenting on the evidence in this trial, another journalist writes, that he rejoices in another defeat sustained by the mad doctors from the verdict of a jury declaring, that we can never sufficiently thank Dr. Burrows for bringing himself, his fra- ternity, and the system, fairly before the public; for they (the mad doctors) are always ready to swear that any man they may have once seen must, of course, be mad. Now, if this writer had understood the nature of the evidence required from Dr. Monro and me on this trial, he would have spared himself this remark. The present un- soundness of the individual's mind was not in dispute. He had been found of unsound mind by a jury two years before.