The ether controversy. Vindication of the [Massachusetts General] Hospital report of 1848 / By N.I. Bowditch.

  • Bowditch, N. I. (Nathaniel Ingersoll), 1805-1861.
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The ether controversy. Vindication of the [Massachusetts General] Hospital report of 1848 / By N.I. Bowditch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    You then copy a note of Dr. Warren to Dr. Jackson. Then follows Dr. Jack¬ son’s paper itself, without the slightest intimation that it was a communication intended to be presented to the Academy at a future day. This paper begins, “ J/r. rresident [not Mr. Yice-President], In reply to numerous inquiries ad¬ dressed to me from scientific gentlemen in various parts of the country, I heg leave to submit to the Academy the following communication.” It will not be pretended that, when this publication was made. Dr. Jackson had transmitted, communicated, or read to the Academy the paper in question. Indeed, the exact paper thus published has neA^er yet been presented by him to the Academy in manuscript. And the very sentence quoted by the Trustees has been most materially altered in the paper actually on the files of the Academy in a point important to the establishment of his claim, so that it now alleges as a fact what had been denied in the Report upon the express authority of Dr. Ilaywai'd. Suppose, Mr. Editor, you had congratulated your readers on being able to lay before them the following argument of Mr. Webster, addressed by him to the Senate of the United States, and had then copied a paper beginning, “ Mr. Pres¬ ident and Senators, I beg leave to submit to your consideration,” &c. would not every reader be justified in inferring and saying that you published that paper as a speech delivered by iSIr. AVebster in the Senate of the United States ? To return to the present Ciise. AVhat constitutes a communication to a scientific body Rom one of its members ? Has the society no rights ? May it not refuse to receive a communication, or to publish one that has been received ? Is it not perfectly clcai' that no paper can be communicated to a scientific body by one of its members, except by transmission to its i)roi)cr ofiicers, or presenta¬ tion or reading at a meeting of the Society ? Does not the publieation of a paper, as a communication to the Academy, necessarily imply that all steps had been taken which make it a communication? Not only so, but does it not further imply that the Society, in the exercise of its rights, had permitted it to be pub¬ lished ? In the Statutes of the Academy, chapter \fiii. on “ Literary Perfor¬ mances,” the second section is as follows : — “A committee of three persons, to bo called the Committee of Fublicatiom, shall be chosen at each annual meeting, and to them all memoirs submitted to the Academy shall he referred.” Is it not, therefore, a legitimate uiferencc, from the publication made by Dr. Jackson in tliis case, that his paper had been communicated, submitted, or read to the Academy, and aftcrAvards been referred to the Committee of Pulfiication, and finally published Avitli theii- permission ? I doubt Avhether an instance ever before occurred Avhere a member of a scientific body has presumed to publish to the Avorld, as a communication addressed to that body, a paper not preAuously sub¬ mitted or read. And no reader could for a moment imagine, that Dr. Jackson had been guilty of this unprecedented indecorum, and actual violation of the statutes of the Academy. It Avould seem, from the renicU’ks of your correspondent, as if there Avere some especial significance in the Avord “ read,” as if a paper read before the Academy had a more decided stamp of approbation than one Avhich had not been read. Of this, hoAvever, there is no pretence. If a paper is short, and upon a subject of general interest, it is usually read; if long, or upon an abstruse subject, it may be otherAvise disposed of by reference to an appropriate committee. The printed