Dr. Beaney's vindication: with reflections on the inquest held upon the body of Mary Lewis.

  • Beaney, James George, 1828-1891.
Date:
1866
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Beaney's vindication: with reflections on the inquest held upon the body of Mary Lewis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

    13/52 (page 9)
    tlie last few years, it is manifest that no medical man would be safe from criminal charges, although, as in my own case, he might escape from his pursuers without injury to his reputation. Society demands that our palladium shall not be invaded, and that the juste milieu shall not be overstepped in dealing with the casualties of the profession. There are occasions where direct violence is done by medical men, as well as by others, where the law properly interferes; but I assert that, unless the case is beyond dispute and admits of no question, on no ground should suposititious cases be trumped up against a class of men whose usefulness depends so essentially on their freedom from outward influences. Still more reprehensible is the conduct of medical men themselves, who, writhing tmder the ignoble influence of jealousy, should prostitute the powers which their position gives them to bring about the destruction of one of their order. The imputation, coming from such a source, is liable to be almost as dangerous as a conviction, and might, unless the confidence of the public in the accused were unusually strong, effectually blast the reputation of an innocent man. Such a circumstance as the late prosecution will for a long period be regarded by impartial men as a deep disgrace to the pro- fession to which I have the honour to belong, and will exist for ever as an unexampled illustration of how seriously men, who ought to adorn a noble profession, can fall from the status con- ferred on them by their Alma Mater, to gratify the basest impulses. The feelings engendered in the public mind by it were those of contempt and loss of confidence. The displays of ignorance and unfairness were generally stated to be unworthy of the men to whom the public had been prone to attribute higher and nobler qualities. The weakness, vacillation, and disingenuousness of the witnesses for the prosecution were such as their opponents regret, and none more so than I, the victim of their ill-judged hostility. These frailties, not to say vices, would have been better concealed than paraded publicly for general comment. The sequel of the trial has been anything but flattering to the profession. It has exonerated me from an unfounded and base charge, but has, at the same time, left a stain on the medical body of this city, which no