The following is Mr. Stanley's reply:
"Brook Street, July 18th.
"Sir,
"Upon the subject of your communication to me, I can only say, that I have no information to give; for I am not in possession of any document relating to it; and so many years have elapsed since the occurrences to which you refer, that I could not trust my memory for the accuracy of any statement, if I were disposed to make it. You will therefore perceive that there exists no foundation for the supposition that 'I desire to withhold something which involved imputations unfavourable to Mr. Abernethy,' or that any other feelings than those of the utmost respect for the memory of Mr. Abernethy have existed in my mind.
"I am, sir,
"Your obedient servant,
"Edward Stanley."G. Macilwain, Esq."
We here conclude this subject.
A somewhat amusing illustration of one feature of the hospital system occurred about this time. Sir Astley Cooper had, without the smallest intention to give offence, made some observation on the somewhat too free use of Mercury at that period in the Borough Hospitals. His observations having been misunderstood or misrepresented, he took occasion to remove any idea of intentional offence, by addressing the class. Among other things, he is reported to have said: "Why, gentlemen, was it likely that I should say any thing unkind towards these gentlemen? Is not Mr. Green my godson, Mr. Tyrrell my nephew, Mr. Travers my apprentice" (the three surgeons of St. Thomas's Hospital), "Mr. Key my nephew, Mr. Cooper my nephew?" (surgeons of Guy's)[78].
This was very naïve, and is an illustration of the value of evidence in proof of facts having no necessary connection with those it was intended to establish.
It is difficult to conceive any one more disinterested than Mr. Abernethy had been in relation to the surgeoncy of the hospital, from the moment at which he was appointed to the hour of his resignation. Although he had waited twenty-eight years as assistant, and not participated in one farthing of the large sums accruing from his reputation in hospital pupil fees—although, too, he had a large family,—yet, so far was he from wishing to indemnify himself for this long exclusion from office by a lengthened tenure of it, that he at once announced his opinion as to the expediency of earlier resignations of the surgeoncies, and his intention of acting on it when he should have attained his sixtieth year. His reasons were liberal and judicious. Amongst others, he said that he had "often witnessed the evils resulting from men retaining the office of surgeons to hospitals when the infirmities of age prevented them from performing their duties in an efficient manner. That, at sixty, he thought they should resign in favour of the juniors," &c.; thus contemplating a tenure of only ten years. Again, he who had founded a school from such small beginnings as could be accommodated in a private house in an obscure neighbourhood (Bartholomew Close), taken for that purpose—who had so increased it, that a theatre was built within the hospital—this again pulled down and rebuilt of enlarged dimensions to receive his increasing audiences—having, too, some time previously made over his museum to the hospital, in trust for the use of the school,—required that his only son (should he prove competent in the opinion of the medical officers) should in due time—Do what? Succeed him? No; but be admitted to a share in the lectures.
Indeed, Mr. Abernethy's closing career at the hospital gave him no great reason to rejoice at the "hospital system." Men, who could see nothing in leaving very much more important situations to an indefinite succession of apprentices, cavilled at a prospective lectureship for his only son; whilst his lectures were delivered over to gentlemen—one of whom had, from an early period, ridiculed, as he said, the opinions which he taught as—and which we now know to have been—John Hunter's; and another, with whom there had been of late several not very pleasing associations.
This was necessarily a result of the "hospital system;" a system that gave a still more melancholy and fatal close to the labours of John Hunter, whose death took place suddenly in the Board-room of St. George's Hospital, whilst resisting an interference with a privilege which his love of science rendered valuable to him, and which it was for the interests of science that he should enjoy; but, mournful as these results are, and many others that might be added, still, if we found that the system worked well for science, we might rest satisfied; but is it so? What advances have the hospital surgeons of London, under the apprentice system, made in the science of surgery? Let those answer the question who are desirous of maintaining this system. For our own parts, the retrospect seems to show "the system" in a more striking manner than any thing we have yet stated. John Hunter, that primus inter omnes, was no hospital apprentice; he migrated from St. Bartholomew's, where the rule was too exclusive to give him a chance, to St. George's, where he obtained admittance; St. Bartholomew's preserved "the system," and lost Hunter.
Abernethy was an apprentice, truly; but all those glorious labours which shed such a lustre on his profession, and such a benefit on mankind, were completed long before he became surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital; and it is material to repeat that at that time the assistant surgeons, with the exceptions already stated, had nothing to do. In casting our eyes over the retrospect of years, one honoured name attracts our notice, in connection with a real advance in the knowledge of the functions of nerves. We allude to Sir Charles Bell. But here again "the system" is unfortunate; for Sir Charles was never a hospital apprentice at all, and only succeeded to a post in a London hospital after an open canvass in an institution in which the narrow portal of the apprentice system is unrecognized.