Correspondence between Dr. Simpson, Dr. Ramsbotham and Dr. Lee in relation to uterine hæmorrhage from placental presentation.

  • Simpson, James Young, 1811-1870.
Date:
[1845]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence between Dr. Simpson, Dr. Ramsbotham and Dr. Lee in relation to uterine hæmorrhage from placental presentation. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    vour of his views. It was to my mind suspiciously strong. Professor Tiede- mann published a description and en¬ gravings of the Nerves of the Pregnant Uterus about 1822. Dr. Lee began his investigations in 1837 or 1838, or nearly sixteen years afterwards ; yet one of the testimonials published by Dr. Lee in support of his anatomical views was so exceedingly determined as to certify against the very progress of time itself, and suggested that Dr. Lee’s investigations were anterior to Professor Tiedemann’s. See the good- natured testimonial given by Dr. John Davy to Dr. Lee, and printed with the others in the Gazette. You are pro¬ bably aware that Mr. Beck here, has more lately and elaborately pursued the same inquiry into the uterine nerves, having begun it, I believe, to prove Dr; Lee’s dissections right, and ending by demonstrating them to be wrong. Some of the gentlemen that certified for Dr. Lee, are now, I am told, quite convinced that Mr. Beck is correct, and Dr. Lee the reverse. Drs. Todd, Sharpey, Owen, Quain, Bowman, and other distinguished anatomists, who have examined Mr. Beck’s beautiful dissections, are, I have been credibly informed, no longer in any doubt whatever, that Dr. Lee is altogether in error on the whole subject, and has uselessly thrown away much valuable time on the inquiry. Surely, my con¬ scientious and confessed belief of all this, however, and my trust, with others, in the perfect accuracy of Mr. Beck, is no reason for having recourse to the remarks of those which compose the latter part of Dr. Lee’s communi¬ cation to the Gazette. ' After reading Dr. Lee’s observations in the Gazette, I wrote him a private note, in which (I hope) I used no ex¬ pression of recrimination, and asked him if he would kindly point out to me any other arithmetical inaccuracies he might have observed in my paper. 1 received in answer no reply to my re¬ quest, but he sent me a perverted state¬ ment of Portal’s cases that had nothing to do with the matter. I knew that he was intimate with Portal’s work, and was certainly more than surprised by his deliberate and uncalled for mis¬ statement regarding that author’s cases. It must pain every friend of Dr. Lee’s and of the profession to see him fol¬ lowing such conduct. I am sorry to add, that in another note, he insisted upon repeating his misstatement to me. Of course, I had no alternative but to decline any more of a corre¬ spondence in which such principles were betrayed. Believe me, my dear sir, Very faithfully yours, J. Y. Simpson. To Dr. Ramsbotham. Stafford House, Sept. 1845. No. 5.—From Dr. Simpson to Dr. Lee. My dear sir,—A few days ago I re¬ ceived from Dr. Ramsbotham a letter, stating that you had directed his at¬ tention to some arithmetical inaccura¬ cies in an Essay of mine, published in Dr. Cormack’s Journal for last March. I inclose you a copy of my answer to Dr. Ramsbotham’s very kind and gen¬ tlemanly letter. As I am publishing the same Essay in a separate and extended form, and am very anxious it should be as free from arithmetical errors as possible, I shall feel deeply obliged by your men¬ tioning, or noting down for me, any other errors that you may have de¬ tected among the figures. Any one who has worked at medical statistics, of the kind included in the Essay in question, knows how difficult, or indeed almost impossible, it is to go through all the different steps of ex¬ tracting the required data, making the calculations from these data, arranging and copying the calculations when made, and finally getting them through