Statement by Dr Christison and Professor Syme, with concurrence of other members of the medical faculty, as to the suppression of the Chair of General Pathology : addressed to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh.

Date:
1841
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Statement by Dr Christison and Professor Syme, with concurrence of other members of the medical faculty, as to the suppression of the Chair of General Pathology : addressed to the Lord Provost of Edinburgh. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    in the Regulations as to attendance, and the source from which they are maintained, there must be as little superfluity as possible. In Germa- ny, Chairs are often founded merely to give station, means of study, and opportunity of instructing, to eminent individuals, who, in many States, without being connected with a University, are not allowed to Lecture; they are often founded only for the life-time of the first occupant, as a reward of merit; they are supported mainly by salaries from govern-- ment; and Students are not compelled to attend any particular Profes- sor. Whether there ought to be Chairs in this University upon the same footing, to give station and learned leisure to men of eminence, but without burdening the Student, is a grave question, which I am not now called on to consider. But it is submitted, that until the Univer- sity possesses such Chairs, the parallel attempted to be drawn between it and the Universities of Germany is altogether inadmissible. The argument in favour of the Pathology Chair, which is founded on the organization of the Parisian School, is in most respects similarly circumstanced. The Medical Chairs in Paris are not so overwhelming in number as at Berlin, but the Professors are supported entirely by Crown salaries, and candidates for medical honours are not compelled to attend their Lectures. The Professors receive each of them about L.600 of salary, and derive individually no emoluments from Students. The Students pay a small matriculation-fee once a quarter, which en- titles them to attend any Courses of Lectures they choose ; and if there is nominally an imperative course of study, there is in effect no imper- ative class, since there is no means of enforcing attendance; and, in point of fact, I have witnessed in Paris, where the principal Medical Chairs ought to be, and many actually are, attended by a thousand Students, certain Professors lecturing to jive-and-twenty or thirty Pupils only. Besides, even suppose attendance w'ere enforced, the hardship of at- tending a superfluity of Lecturers and Lectures would be compara- tively insignificant. For, while nothing would be added to the expense on the part of Students, little wmuld be added to the expenditure of time; because the Parisian Lectures are given for the most part twice, and seldom oftener than thrice, a week, so that a great number may easily be followed in a single season. Even with all these facilities in favour of the erection of new Chairs, the Parisian Medical Faculty resisted the institution of the Chair of General Pathology in 1831. The result showed that they had good reason. For during the eight years of the incumbency of Professor Broussais, a man of great talent, and very popular previously as a clini- cal instructor, the attendance of Students on the Lectures fell away to a very small number; and it is but reasonable, in the view taken of the constitution of that Chair by the Medical Faculty of Edinburgh, to as-