Volume 2

A report of the trial of Cooper v. Wakley, for an alleged libel, taken by shorthand writers employed expressly for the occasion; with an engraving of the instruments, and the position of the patient / Together with Mr. B. Cooper's "Prefatory remarks" on the evidence, and a copious explanatory appendix. By Thomas Wakley.

  • Cooper, Bransby Blake, 1792-1853
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A report of the trial of Cooper v. Wakley, for an alleged libel, taken by shorthand writers employed expressly for the occasion; with an engraving of the instruments, and the position of the patient / Together with Mr. B. Cooper's "Prefatory remarks" on the evidence, and a copious explanatory appendix. By Thomas Wakley. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    139/184 (page 127)
    Six lectures, I believe, of Mr. Green’s, on diseases of the eye, were published from the theatre of St. Thomas’s Hospital, but they were delivered there as part of Sir Astley Cooper’s course: and | believe he is correct in stating that five of those lectures were very inaccurate, but the other was perfectly correct: the inaccu- racy,this single inaccuracy, arose from accidental circumstances, with which I will not trouble you. But the lectures taken at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital were so accurately published, that Mr. Abernethy made an affidavit which was presented to the Court of Chancery, in which he swore that they were taken word for word, and syllable for syllable, as he had delivered them. Now, what is St. Bartho- lomew’s Hospital? Is it not public property? Have the public no right to it ? The surgeons have no right to close the doors against the public, and to allow of nothing but ‘hole and corner” proceedings. ‘This was a practice I intended to resist; it is a practice I have resisted with a success as beneficial, I believe, to the profession, as it has been to the public. Now with respect to the other lectures, those of Dr. Armstrong, Mr. Lawrence, Dr. Blundell, Mr. Alcock, Mr. Brande, Dr. Clutterbuck, Dr. Spurzheim, Dr. Haslam, and others; they were all published WITH THE CONSENT OF THE LECTURERS; this I stated in the first number of the present volume, with a view that the public might know exactly how the thing stood ;—with your permission, ] shall read that part of the number; it is exceedingly short. [Sir James Scarlett—If you read that, I shall have a right to reply.] Mr. Wakley—Then I shall desist, certainly. Sir James Scarlett has been en- tirely deceived on this subject. ‘There must have been some gross misrepre- sentation made to him. You have had no evidence tendered to you that the lectures had been stolen, and yet at the very outset of the learned gentleman’s speech, it was stated to you that nothing would give me greater satisfaction than that I should be able to destroy the authors of the lectures; but, gentle- men, nothing would lessen the character of an author so much, or be so calcu- lated to injure a work, as unfounded aspersions, or to publish statements that are incorrect. Having said so much on the false allegations relative to lectures, I shall now come to the immediate subject before you; and certainly it ap- pears to me the proceedings of this day are the most peculiar that ever took place in a court of justice. In fact, they are so extraordinary that I cannot, I cannot by possibility, find words to express the astonishment I feel, after the boasting and vaunting of yesterday morning, and after the boasting and vaunt- ing of this morning. Why, Gentlemen, it was stated that this report is a fabrication from beginning to end—that it originated in nothing but malice— that it had its foundation in a private quarrel between Mr. Lambert and Mr. Bransby Cooper—and, in fact, that the operation, as reported in Tue Lancer, was a supposed, merely a supposed operation. What are the facts? From one of the plaintiff’s own witnesses you have heard that there were present nearly two hundred individuals,—I believe there were more. How many gentlemen have come forward—how many of the spectators of that operation— how many have come forward to speak to the inaccuracy of the report—how: