Correspondence and statements regarding the teaching of clinical medicine in the University of Edinburgh, 1855-1857 : with a sequel / by T. Laycock.

  • Laycock, Thomas, 1812-1876.
Date:
1857
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence and statements regarding the teaching of clinical medicine in the University of Edinburgh, 1855-1857 : with a sequel / by T. Laycock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    explain why—if this he a true allegation—he never put the written document to the uses for which such documents are expressly constructed, namely, to secure a thorough understanding of the agreement, and of things agreed to hy the concurring parties ? Confessedly he never gave me a copy of it either before or after he so bound me ; not even when he was formally asked for a written award. (Letter 15, p. 24.) He shows no signature, has no witness, and only produces the written document after the lapse of three months, at a meeting of the Medical Faculty, from which, by previous arrangement, I was absent (p. 31). Again, similarly, it falls to Mr. Syme to explain why he, acting as sole arbitrator, and owing that position to my entire reliance on his feelings of honour and gentlemanlike conduct, drew up an agreement in manifest adaptation to the wishes and exclusive advantages of the individual who first named him, and deciding important questions, by myself expressly excluded from arbitration from the first. The bare under such circumstances, to procure my concurrence with the alleged agreement could not be made in accordance with any principle of honourable and gentlemanlike conduct, so far as I understand the words. Mr. Syme should have first arbitrated as to the past; having done that, he was entitled to offer his further good offices as to future arrangements, but no more. This would have been honourable and gentlemanlike. 3. There is only one other point in Mr. Syme's conduct by which I will further test his principles and gentlemanlike conduct. On refe¬ rence to page 47, it will be seen that Dr. Bennett states Mr. Syme’s award to be— “ That, as an equivalent for not lecturing next summer, Dr. Laycock should have the clinical wards during the autumn, with an entire sixth of the winter fees.” But I repudiated this assertion of Dr. Bennett's as to Mr Syme’s award, because it was wholly inconsistent wfith Mr. Syme's own written statements to me and to others. For example, in the letter which he spontaneously wrote to Dr. Simpson, in which he states “ what he has done,” Mr. Syme says :— “ The modes of dividing the fees being extremely complicated, I took for my guide, in conformity with them, the principle that each should he paid according to his share of the lectures. Now each lectured during a half of the winter session. Each^ therefore, has a half of the winter fees, and Bennett the whole of the summer fees.” (Letter 22, p. 27). Now this is as opposite to Dr. Bennett's statement of Mr. Syme's award as it is possible to be. According to Dr. Bennett, I was allotted