Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee.

  • Gamgee, Sampson, 1828-1886.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical reform a social question, comprehensively studied with the light of philosophy, history, and common sense : two letters to the Right Hon. Viscount Palmerston / by Joseph Sampson Gamgee. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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

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    adroitness used every means to secure a tran- sitory success; believing that the smallness of the minority was due partly to inadequate consi- deration of the weight of the question, and partly to misplaced confidence in the abstract power of truth, I purpose addressing myself more fully to demonstrating the injustice, impolicy, and unphi- losophical spirit of that measure. My statements shall be facts; my arms shall be taken from the arsenal of history and philosophy; my stand shall be taken on the stronghold of common sense. And as this is no party question, as it involves alike the honor of science and the material welfare of the people, as it concerns the palace no less than the cottage, and affects the comfort of the poor no less than the luxury of princes, I hope, I rely upon impartial considera- tion ;—hope—reliance—which I should certainly not venture to express if exclusively appealing to your Lordship ; but as I pen these words, they are being committed to the press, so that they may go before the world for judgment; that I in penning them may feel the salutary check of a heavy responsibility ; the people, in reading them, have the opportunity of judging the sin- cerity, the force, of logic in spontaneously over, flowing truth. And, if I be found to utter real truth, I hope in the few hours which elapse before the time appointed for the third reading of Mr. Headlam’s Bill, a resolution will be %