Correspondence and editorial comments on the points at issue between Dr. Tweedie & Dr. Murchison concerning identical passages in their respective works on fever.

  • Murchison, Charles, 1830-1879.
Date:
1863
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Correspondence and editorial comments on the points at issue between Dr. Tweedie & Dr. Murchison concerning identical passages in their respective works on fever. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    tables; he had my permission to use them. But it is otherwise when he adopts my reasonings and views, in the ipsissima verba of my printed essay, in such a manner as to lead his readers to think, that my remarks are his own observations upon the facts collected by me. The very manner in which he introduces my name at certain places, is calculated to make the reader believe, that some of my remarks are his qualifications of views expressed by me. A comparison of page 202 of Dr. Tweedie’s lectures with page 290 of my essay in the Med.-Chir. Trans., is sufficient to show, that the notice in my preface was fully called for. It is un- necessary for me to enter into the details of the manner in which Dr. Tweedie has appropriated my writings, as this has been done by your reviewer, who, as you say, “ took the case as it stood before him in the works of the two authors,” unbiassed by either party, and whose statement of facts is in no way invalidated by your remarks. (See also Med. Times and Gazette of January 3rd, 1863.) 7. I have not been indebted to Dr. Tweedie for any facts obtained by him by correspondence with leading provincial physi- cians, as to the recent prevalence of fever. The leading physicians of Great Britain and Ireland well know how often I have troubled them, during the last six years, for information on this point; and indeed, Dr. Tweedie, in his Lectures (p. 200), admits that I had made a valuable addition to the statistics of the London Fever Hospital, by collecting those of provincial and other hospitals. 8. With reference to Dr. Tweedie’s statement, that he had men- tioned to me some months ago his intention of republishing his lectures, I beg to remind Dr. Tweedie that it was I who, in August, interrogated him whether the report to that effect was correct, adding, that if such was the case, I would require of him to alter the expression made use of in his lectures in the Lancet, that he had suggested my inquiries to me (vide Lancet, 1860, i, 3); and that if he did not do so, I should be under the necessity of taking notice of the matter as an unwarranted assertion. Dr. Tweedie at once consented to omit the expression objected to, and did so; yet he now reiterates that it is strictly accurate. This I again emphatically deny. It is an erroneous, and apparently in- eradicable, impression on Dr. Tweedie’s mind, that what was lent to him for his use, was originated by him. 9. I have no recollection of Dr. Tweedie asking me if I desired him to make any other alterations; but even if he did so, I could not have stated the grounds of my present complaint. It was not until some weeks after the occasion alluded to, on finding how my words had been attributed to Dr. Tweedie, in one of the Cork Fever Hospital Reports, that I was induced, for the first time, to read Dr. Tweedie’s lectures, so as to discover the free use which he had made of my writings without acknowledgment. 10. The preceding paragraphs have reference solely to my essay in the Med.-Chir. Trans.; and I beg to call the attention of your readers to the circumstance, that my preface contains no other c