Vindication of the pre-eminent efficacy of manual operations in the cure of rheumatic and nervous diseases : against the malignant and unprincipled attempts of certain members of the medical profession to decry and obstruct the practice / by William Balfour.

Date:
1834
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Vindication of the pre-eminent efficacy of manual operations in the cure of rheumatic and nervous diseases : against the malignant and unprincipled attempts of certain members of the medical profession to decry and obstruct the practice / by William Balfour. 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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    opponents. Nineteen to one is nothing with them, when set against their wishes ! “ He that’s convinced against his will, “ Is of the same opinion still.” But my case is not singular : On the contrary, my anta- gonists have, without intending it, placed me on ground the most honourable. The history of medicine and sur- gery abounds in instances of persecutions of their brightest ornaments—of men, whose discoveries have immortalized their names, and laid the foundation of that state of im- provement to which these sciences have attained in our day. It may therefore be laid down as a general rule, that the value and importance of any innovation or improvement in medicine or surgery, is to be estimated by the violence with which it is opposed, and the obloquy cast upon its author, by the unprincipled of the profession. In the fourth place. My adversaries say, that subordi- nate agents, nay, old women, could perform my operations, with equal effect as myself. This is merely the overflowing of their spleen at my suc- cess ; and proves to demonstration, that they know nothing about my operations. Before any old woman can operate to equal advantage with me, she must be better acquainted with Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology, than, I sus- pect, some of my opponents are ; otherwise she would either produce no effect at all, or do a great deal of harm. If old women could operate with equal effect as myself; how comes it, that so many patients go to London and other places in England, in quest of cures, and, after subjecting them- selves to the operations of both old and young women, un- der the superintendence of able physicians and surgeons, for weeks and months together, to no purpose, are con- strained to have recourse to me at last; and obtain peifect and permanent cures ? The answer is plain and easy. Neither the doctors in question, nor their subordinates, know any thing of the matter. I shall give an instance, out of many.