NOTE U, p. 510.

Letter of Dr CULLEN to the Honourable HENry Dundas, Esq., afterwards Lord Melville.

"SIR,

November 12th, 1786.

I was at Hillhead this morning to have the honour of waiting upon you, and of talking to you about a little business; but not being so happy as to find you at home, I beg leave to trouble you with this letter to explain the business I intended to have spoken of.

My worthy colleague, Dr Hope, died yesternight, whereby the office of Professor of Botany is become vacant, and I intend to propose my son, Dr Henry Cullen, as his successor.

I have always been ambitious of your favour; I have thought myself highly honoured and obliged by the instances of it I have frequently received, and beg the continuance of it on this occasion, but think it incumbent upon me to lay the grounds of my application before you.

My son has, for a great part of his life, made Botany his particular study, and has given proofs of his proficiency in it. My colleagues of the Faculty of Physic allow me to say they are ready to testify their opinion of his being well qualified for the office he now seeks; and a gentleman, who, it will be acknowledged, is one of the first botanists in Britain, and who has had access to know my son's progress in that branch, is ready to give the most ample recommendation of his fitness to fill the Botanic Chair.*

Presuming upon all this, I venture to add, that I flatter myself upon some pretension to the favour of the administra tors of the city. For now thirty years I have served as a Professor in their University, and have devoted my time and labour to the promoting of the reputation of this school of medicine. With what success my labours have been attended, and how much they have contributed to the increase of the students at

*This is supposed by Dr Thomson to refer to Dr John Walker.

the University, it is perhaps unbecoming for me to say; but I trust I may be allowed to claim some merit with the town of Edinburgh, and some right to their favour.

It is natural for me to wish that a son, whom I carefully trained to the study of Physic, should be a Professor in the same University with myself; and when his qualifications to fill the found vacant chair are acknowledged by those who are the best judges of them, I hope it will not appear presumptuous in me to solicit for him.

To be honoured with your favour and patronage upon this occasion, would, I know, be of the utmost importance to my son's success; and I hope you will forgive me for requesting it in the most earnest manner. Your doing so will confer a very high obligation upon me, and I have the honor to be, &c. (Signed) WILLIAM CULLEN."

The Honourable HENRY DUNDAS, Esquire, to Dr CULLEN, in reply to the foregoing letter.

“SIR,

12th November 1786.

I have just now the honor of your letter. Nobody feels stronger than I do the importance of proper appointments to the medical chairs in the University of Edinburgh; and I have uniformly acted upon that principle; and, in the present instance, so far as I may have any concern in the business, shall continue to do so.

At the same time, under that reserve, I should act uncandidly not to inform you that I have, ever since the appointment of Doctor Walker to the Professorship of Natural History, retained a strong disposition to assist Dr Rutherford in his views to obtain a Professor's Chair. He was at that time strongly recommended to me by many persons whom I wished particularly to oblige; but the current of opinion was so strong in favour of Dr Walker, I was under the necessity of supporting him. Dr Rutherford's behaviour was so gentlemanlike on the occasion, it impressed me with the feeling I have expressed, and

which I wish to act upon in the present instance, if no public grounds operate against it.

I have the honor to be, Sir, with great respect, your most obedient and humble servant,

HENRY DUNDAS."

NOTE W, p. 514.

It has been supposed by some, that a misunderstanding or unfriendly feeling had taken place between Cheselden and Dr James Douglas. Of such an occurrence I find no distinct proof either in the medical history of that period, or in that of the relations subsisting between Mr Cheselden and Dr James Douglas. The manner in which this idea has arisen, it appears to me, is the following.

There were at that time, 1725-1736, two persons of the name of Douglas, brothers; the one Dr James Douglas, the Lecturer on Anatomy, a physician; the other, his brother, Mr John Douglas, Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, a man of eminence as a surgeon, and particularly as a lithotomist, in which character he was a great patron and practitioner of the High Ope

ration.

Dr James Douglas, so far as I can perceive, continued during life on the most friendly terms with Cheselden, and is well known as one who took very great pains to explain both the anatomical advantages of the lateral operation for Lithotomy, as practised by Cheselden, and to show its success when compared with the High Operation. There is no proof in the whole course of their common history that either of these men looked on the other with any other feelings than those of good and friendly understanding. Dr Douglas was a physician, and took the deepest interest in the improvement of the Lateral Operation, and in making known its peculiar advantages, chiefly from his desire to benefit the science and practice of surgery, and from a desire, which appears in all that he did, to render everything that passed through his hands as perfect as possible, and to explain to others wherein this superiority consisted.

There was no desire to claim for himself any peculiar merit in this proceeding, and certainly none to deprive Cheselden of the reputation to which he was most justly entitled as a cautious and skilful operator. It was more as an anatomist and surgical anatomist than in any other character, that Dr James Douglas appeared as the advocate of the Lateral Operation. Nor can we perceive in the circumstance that Dr James Douglas and Mr Cheselden both lectured at the same time on anatomy, any evidence of jealousy or envy in either of these two men.

Dr Douglas states, in terms sufficiently clear and plain, the reasons which induced him to give the account which he did of the operation of Mr Cheselden. When that operation became the subject of conversation abroad, especially in France, and several accounts of it were made public, though several of these accounts, of which he says he had seen three or four, contain many of the essential parts of Mr Cheselden's operation; yet, in every one of them, something is wanting. Dr Douglas resolved, therefore, for the credit of English surgery and of the operation itself, to give, once for all, Mr Cheselden's whole method of proceeding. And he expresses the opinion, that this detail will be of some use even to the Parisian surgeons themselves, notwithstanding that they have the best opportunities for making the necessary experiments for every operation; but infinitely more so to surgeons in other places, both at home and abroad, who have not had such advantages.

He farther adds, that he was obliged to Mr Cheselden for the chief materials of his paper; and as he has been so kind as to communicate to me, with the greatest readiness and without reserve, all the particulars which I could not have come to the knowledge of, I am confident that none will pretend to dispute, but what I here describe is his operation, and his whole operation.'

Another object of Dr Douglas was, to present a clear and distinct account of the anatomy of the parts concerned in the operation, a matter which, it must be allowed, was given only in a general way by Cheselden.

That all this was done in the most friendly manner towards the great surgeon of St Thomas's Hospital, London, will be admitted by every one who remembers what testimony Che

selden himself bore to the correctness of Dr Douglas's account, and that he subsequently, after the death of Dr Douglas, made the following spontaneous statement.

'I had,' says Mr Cheselden, this account of Hernia from the late Dr Douglas, a most industrious anatomist, very communicative, and much to be relied on. * * * The present cases I have from Mr Hunter (Dr William Hunter), a pupil of his, who dissected many of those, which were shown me by the Doctor, and who, to all the good qualities of his great master, has added that of true philosophy.'

*

In making these remarks, we forget not, that our friend the late Dr Yelloly, with the view of rectifying what he conceived to be an erroneous statement by Dr Douglas, thought it incumbent on him to republish, in the Fifty-First volume of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,† the account which Cheselden himself published of his method of operating, in the Fourth Edition of his Anatomy. To republish that account was perfectly proper, as it contains, regarding the patients operated upon, some exact details not given in the ordinary editions. But while we make this admission, it must be added, that Cheselden himself, though he lived several years after the date of the publication of this Fourth Edition, and published one, or rather two editions, never afterwards republished this account; and the descriptions which he has left in the Fifth and Sixth Editions, which must be taken as the most authentic, contain no complaint against Dr Douglas, and no remark, but merely an account of the incisions and manner of cutting, so as to get with safety into the bladder. There is, in short, no indication, either at this time or subsequently, that any misunderstanding or dislike had separated these two eminent men; and we find that when Dr Thomson, in 1808, republished the account of Cheselden, with the illustrative portion of Dr Douglas's postscript, he shows that he had no belief

* The Operations in Surgery of Mons. Le Dran, Senior Surgeon of the Hospital of La Charité, &c., translated by Thomas Gataker, Surgeon. With Remarks, Plates of the Operations, and a Set of Instruments. By William Cheselden, Esq., &c. London, 1749. 8vo, p. 463.

† April 1839. P. 316.