Letter to the Right Honourable Sir James Spittal, Lord Provost, to the magistrates and Town-Council of Edinburgh, on the expediency of continuing the Chair of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh / by Robert Lewins.

  • Lewins, Robert.
Date:
1837
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Letter to the Right Honourable Sir James Spittal, Lord Provost, to the magistrates and Town-Council of Edinburgh, on the expediency of continuing the Chair of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh / by Robert Lewins. 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.

    18/42 (page 6)
    —Is Dr Thomson really entitled to a retiring allowance ? I have formerly answered that question in the negative; and I think any impartial person, who is aware of the state of the case, will readily acquiesce in that opinion. The institution of this Chair was not recommended by the Commissioners appointed to visit the Universities of Scotland, but was called into existence by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, it is understood, through Dr Thomson's political interest. He has filled that Chair for three or four years, and lectured eighteen or at most twenty-four months. Now, I appeal to any party, or to any impartial man, if, under these circumstances, Dr Thomson be entitled to a pension, and, least of all, to one from the source from which it is proposed to be levied,—from the students ; and that, too, by compelling them to throw away their money, and waste their still more valuable time, in attending a class which the Professors have denounced as unnecessary,—nay, which they expressly declare for instruction paid for to other teachers within the walls of the University. It is no relief of this unparalleled grievance that the fee required will be small. It must be two guineas at least; and those who are acquainted with the slender finances of many of our medical students, must be aware that an unnecessary exaction even to that amount is an op- pression. Sir Astley Cooper, after he had realised a princely fortune by the exercise of his splendid professional talents, was, to his honour, in the habit of mentioning, at his introductory lectures, that he remembered the time when, as a student, a shilling was an object of importance to him. But the evidence of our Professors themselves af- fords unquestionable proof of the ungenerous nature of their plan. Whenexamined by the Commissioners in 1830, the evidence referred to was elicited, and is recorded in the following words : e There are also many in straitened circumstances; and the evidence as to Edinburgh agrees with that afforded at all the other Universities, that, owing to the failure of means, a proportion of the students are stated by the Professors to be obliged to leave the College a considerable time before the end of the session; and that this is so irremediable, that certificates are granted on the 1st of April, as if the attendance had been regular and complete 'b See Report of the Commissioners appointed to visit the Universities and Colleges of Scotland, page 162.