Remarks on the letters of Dr. Home, to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Town-Council.

Date:
[1821]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Remarks on the letters of Dr. Home, to the Right Honourable the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Town-Council. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    3/4 (page 3)
    bounty to many Students to enter the Class; inasmuch*as for one fee they may get two courses of Lectures. Dr Home does not mention the year in which he first gave this privilege ; but looking at the table presented by himself, we conjecture it must have been about the year 1813 or 14; since, from that period, we observe a sudden and very considerable rise in the number of the second year's pupils. Of course, this pri¬ vilege must contribute greatly to augment the total numbers of his class : and we find accordingly, on looking at his lists for the years before specified, viz. 1817, 18, and 19, the average number of gratis students to be 68, which reduces the total average of these three years from 270 to 210. If, therefore, from the facts stated above, we estimate, first, the number of Pupils of Materia Medica who become Graduates : secondly, the number who obtain Surgical Diplomas ; and, thirdly, the number of gratuitous Students on Dr Home’s lists,_and deduct all these from the average totals of his class, only a small number will re¬ main on the list, and which may, in great part, be accounted for by the casualties that arise from Students who prosecute their Studies with the view of taking a Medical Degree or Surgical Diploma, and who afterwards either abandon their professional pur¬ suits here, or fail altogether in obtaining their object. With regard to contemporary Professors, whom Dr Home states himself to have so greatly surpassed, we would just beg to mention, that, if we compare two distant periods, for example the years 1800 and 1819, it will be found, we believe, that the increase of Students in the Class of « Institutions of Medicine is greater than in that of Materia Medica taught by Dr Home : for, if we are not mistaken, the number in the former class at thz first period was about 90,—in the second above 200 ; while in the Materia Medica Class, the number, as given by Dr Home, was 98 in the year 1800, and in 1819, after deducting the gratuitous pupils, it was, on the same authority, only 199.—Again, in the Anatomy Class, where the Professor has to contend with nume¬ rous and powerful rivals, the number in 1819 was higher than Dr Home’s, or upwards of 200. In the Botany Class of the same period, (which Surgical Students are not required to attend,) the number, notwithstanding, was, we believe, about 170. Of the two other classes, that of the Practice of Physic, taught by the late illustrious Di- Gregory, and that of Chemistry so ably taught jay the present Professor, we need not enter into comparisons. All these facts go to prove, that the merits of Dr Home, as estimated by the number of his Pupils, do not surpass, in any one instance, those of his contemporary Professors; and in two instances, at least, they fall remarkably below them. \ I T sK* Dr Home dwells largely, and very properly, +4 the opportunities of Clinical Prac¬ tice which he has enjoyed; but it should be borne in mind, that the twenty-three years of such practice, during which he delivered eighteen Course pi Lectures, affords, in fact, but about four and a half years of actual practice; since each Course of Lectures is but of three months’ duration. He has, besides, been nearly thirty years one of the Physicians of the Royal Dispensary, and “ for many years performed more than his