Observations on the position occupied by the Corporation of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland : with reference to the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Senate of the Queen's University in Ireland / by Rawdon Macnamara.

  • Macnamara, Rawdon.
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Observations on the position occupied by the Corporation of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland : with reference to the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Senate of the Queen's University in Ireland / by Rawdon Macnamara. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    official acknowledgment of the receipt of his letter; and to this day this is the position oecupied by the Council of the College of Surgeons in Ireland. Am I not, then, justified in stating that, according to all the received laws of etiquette and of diplomacy, the initiative should now devolve on us ; and no matter what ultimate result may attend our efforts at an adjustment of our differences, the Council of the College cannot be accused of having compromised its dignity in any efforts that they may now make to secure its future welfare. Having thus, however, vindicated my right to refuse to answer, either in the negative or affirmative, the question— “Have you any authority for thinking that the Board of Trinity College will agree to relinquish the right that it now claims to have its License in Surgery inserted in the General Regis- ter ?” I will now go a step farther, and say / have authority • for so thinking, and high authority also; and I here pledge myself to my readers and to the profession at large, that I have been informed on high authority, authority in which I place the most implicit reliance—a reliance founded on and justified by many years’ knowledge of, and Intimacy with, the gentlemen in question—that the Professors and Board of Tri- nity College do not estimate this License at the value which has been attributed to it, and that, even if they had succeeded in establishing their right to have it inserted on the Register, they never would put it in force were the examination at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland opened to their pupils, and that they are now prepared to abandon all efforts to en- force its registration by Parliamentary enactment, were this privilege granted them. This information has been com- munieated to other members of the Council of the College besides myself Surely the Fellows have a right to ask why is not it submitted to the “ experimentum crucis ?” In such a crisis an obstinate adherence to antiquated customs, or the feelings expressed in the line, “ Senioribus gravis est inveterati moris mutatio,” cannot be pleaded as any just excuse to them for thus jeopardizing the interests of the Corporation, either through supineness or neglect, or from motives of pique or false pride. Presuming that we had amicably arranged our differences with the Board of Trinity College, Dublin, would the Coun- cil of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland have steered into that haven of rest, so much to be desired, the vessel of which it has undertaken the charge and safe conduct ? My reply is, no; breakers are still ahead, and it behoves us still