Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1857
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    Henry Brougham; for us pleads the Alma Mater of William Harvey, under the chancellorship of our Queen’s Consort; for us, my Lord Palmerston, pleads the history of your whole life, of the life of William Pitt, John Bussell, and Robert Peel —of the lives of the really great ones, of all parties and of all ages ; for us have pleaded in the House of Commons, amongst many others, Mr Duncombe, Mr. Cowper, Lord Elcho, Viscount Goderich, and the illustrious scion—hone of the future—of the house of Derby; for us plead all history and all philosophy ; for us pleads the Sense of senses—the Universal—the Common Sense. I pray you, my Lord, to be indulgent if I have been indiscreet; in such a cause, with but few hours to plead it, it was difficult to control exces- sive zeal as Talleyrand bid his secretaries. The bed-side and the dead-house, not the forum and the Court, having been my school, I have perhaps pleaded with too much rashness; doubtlessly an experienced advocate would have pleaded with less anxiety, but the cause in hand, mankind, the world of science versus monopoly and preju- dice, needs no artifice. Plain-spoken truth will gain the day. Another request, my Lord. Medical students, again I use the term in its largest acceptation, can so rarely hope to have the ear of Govern- ment, that the occasion must not be lost. I pray c