Medical reform : the present crisis / by Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1870
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reform : the present crisis / by Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    have only to hold our own, to adhere to the unassailable principles of the Birmingham Memorial, and the victory of those principles will be safe. A little more pressure will not fail to convey to those bodies which have the strongest instinct of self preservation, that evils such as those under which the Medical Profession has so long laboured in this country, never fail to work out their own cure. It is a case for expectant medicine, not for heroic remedies, for conservative surgery, not for amputation. We well know that in saving a life or a limb it is not always possible to save every organ and part. Weak and bruised structures die and are eliminated, but the trunk lives, and wounds heal up kindly, under judicious manage¬ ment. The simile may be carried a little further. However a man may speculate in his study, at the bedside with a serious case he must be judicious. Theories and systems must be held in abeyance when life is in the scale. It is the life of the Profession which is involved in the present crisis of Medical Reform. A proper under¬ standing of the nature and causes of the ills under which the body is labouring, is essential to the choice and appli¬ cation of a remedy. Is that knowledge available in the particular case ? The meetings held here before, and at, the establishment of the Medical Reform Union, our vast correspondence with the Profession in connection with the Memorial, the proceedings of the General Medical Council,