An account of a medical controversy in the city of Cork, in which five physicians are engaged; with the remarkable manner of its being hitherto conducted : To which are subjoined two letters from Dr. Mead and one from Dr. Frewin, to the different persons concern'd.

Date:
1749
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of a medical controversy in the city of Cork, in which five physicians are engaged; with the remarkable manner of its being hitherto conducted : To which are subjoined two letters from Dr. Mead and one from Dr. Frewin, to the different persons concern'd. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    18/72 (page 10)
    will not only be thick cover’d over with evident Contradictions to plain Fads, but interfperfed with fuchfpiteful and purulent Reflexions againfl his Ad- verfary, that they may be laid mod literally to refemble the morbid Spots and Scabs, which are thrown out from within, in the Cafe of that loathfome Difeafe. And we may therefore fafely conclude, that the moft folemn Declarations, of any Perfon or Perlons, againfl: whom there is this material Ob- jedion, will never in their own Cafe be of fufflcient Credit, to fatisfy the neutral Part of Mankind. But however it does not appear, that this plain Truth was fo clear to this quadruple Alliance in Phyflck, lince their Manner of giving Evidence for themfelves, runs pretty much in this diverting Strain, thro’ the whole of the Reply. We four, fay they, having great Faith as Chrif- tians, and much Honour as Gentlemen, and withal having fufflcient Authority fo to declare, as being all of us Evidences for each other, and every Man for himfelf; We therefore by the Authority aforefaid, do moft pofitively affirm, that it is a Thing abfo- lutely impofftble for us, to be at any Time, or in the leaft Degree, miftaken in our Pradice ; the Proof of which they have given us in a Latin Sen¬ tence, Non licet in Medicina femel peccare. And as one of their Number had publiffled a Diary of Mr. Baker's Ditfemper, they would proceed by the fame imperial Authority, to impofe this on Dr. Blair^ as a Standard in the Controverfy ; tho* it would have been better for them, firft to have pretended to be divinely infpired, becaufe by that they mighc have had a Precedent, to talk in the Stile of a Turk bolding forth his Koran to a Chriflian. For furely they look and fpeak as big as any Mahometan of them all, when they declare. That whatever Symp¬ toms are not recorded in this Diary, or whatever Medicines