A letter to the Right Hon. Lord Francis Egerton, President Elect of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, containing observations on statements made by its officers in the volume of the Transactions published in April, 1842 / [Alexander Nasmyth].

  • Nasmyth, Alexander, 1758-1840.
Date:
1842
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to the Right Hon. Lord Francis Egerton, President Elect of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, containing observations on statements made by its officers in the volume of the Transactions published in April, 1842 / [Alexander Nasmyth]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of many hundred pounds expended by me in prepara¬ tions and illustrations. This hope, however, proved illu¬ sory, and a series of incomprehensible proceedings on the part of the Council has terminated in an act which I think cannot meet with the approbation of right-think¬ ing men, either in or out of the Association. In the Comjjte Rendu for the 16th of December, 1839, less than four months after the presentation of my memoirs to the British Association, Mr. Owen is reported to have presented one to the Academie des Sciences of Paris, “Sur “ la Structure et la Formation des Dents,’’ &c. This was one of the branches of the different subjects which I had confided to his care as a councilman of the British Asso¬ ciation, and the absence of all mention of my memoirs on the same subject, and exactly to the same purport, is ex¬ tremely difficult to reconcile with the character of an upright guardian. The preparations which afforded materials for the observations detailed in that Memoir were, I believe, taken from the shelves of the Museum of which he was conservator. From whatever source, however, the preparations were obtained, the illustrations derived from them were transported beyond seas, to claim for their possessor the credit of being the first to demonstrate the self-same theory which it was the sole object of my memoirs and illustrations on that particular subject, to demonstrate to him and the public at Birmingham, not four months before this foreign promulgation of his opinions! As conservator of the Museum of the College of Surgeons, he was guardian of the preparations which formed the materials of my studies; as a Councilman of the Association, he was guardian of the fruit of those studies : how far he has fulfilled these trusts, I leave it to your Lordship to deter¬ mine from the history of the transaction. Shortly after this, he transfused these opinions into the