A letter to Sir William Garrow, His Majesty's attorney-general, on his proposed bill for regulating the practice of surgery throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland / by James Hamilton.

  • Hamilton, James, 1749-1835.
Date:
1817
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A letter to Sir William Garrow, His Majesty's attorney-general, on his proposed bill for regulating the practice of surgery throughout the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland / by James Hamilton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

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    Indeed, if it should be proposed to enact, that every Surgeon through- out the United Kingdom should be obliged to practise Midwifery, a most unanimous opposition to such a regulation, by all the three Royal Col- leges, might be predicted. When the preamble of your Bill, which states, “ Whereas ignorant and incapable persons are not restrained by law from practising Surgery, whereby the Health of great numbers of Persons is much injured, and the Lives of many destroyed,” is compared with the fifth clause, “ And whereas Surgical Aid is frequently required in the Practice of Mid- wifery, and it is expedient, that Male Persons so practising should be qualified to render such Aid,”—it is evidently assumed, that not only a knowledge of Surgery is necessary in the Practice of Midwifery, but also, that the Profession of Midwifery is inferior or subordinate to that of Surgery. The fallacy of the former of those Propositions has been al- ready shewn, and it will not be difficult to prove that the latter is still more unfounded. It is probably unnecessary to remark, that the value of every branch of human industry depends partly upon the wants, natural or artificial, of mankind, and partly upon the demand for that species of labour in par- ticular states of society. It is impossible for me at least to imagine that the value of the different departments of the Medical Profession can be estimated by any other rule. The utility of the Art of Surgery cannot be questioned. That in the ordinary intercourse of life broken limbs and other accidents frequently occur; that disorders requiring Surgical Operations are sometimes met with; and that in the prosecution of war, wounds and corporeal injuries of every description must happen, are indisputable facts. But it may perhaps be a fair calculation, that the proportion of individuals in so- ciety requiring Surgical Aid, independent of Medical A.dvice, does not amount to one in five hundred. Or considering the subject in another point of view, viz. according to the aggregate number of annual deaths,