The use made by Wakley of Sir Astley Cooper's expression, "give him time," is another specimen of sophistry. Sir Astley evidently meant merely to say that, ceteris paribus, a man who had been twenty years surgeon to an Hospital would be more experienced than one who had held the situation but one-fourth of that period. This we believe to have been his sentiment, though nothing was ever less happily expressed. Accordingly it was not lost upon the defendant, who exclaimed, "Is that the way in which our hospitals are to be conducted? Is that the mode in which your poor patients are to be treated?—that young and inexperienced men are to be placed there to learn their profession—not to know it before they get there, but are to go there to learn it—and learn it upon whom?—upon individuals who are as much entitled to the best and most scientific practice of surgery as any nobleman in this land." All very fine—but we should be glad to know how or where a practical acquaintance with surgery is to be acquired but in public hospitals—and if no man is to be appointed till after he has gained experience, where are such men to come from? Where are ready-made surgeons to be found fit to operate even before Lambert, without his being able to make a hole in their reputation?
One of the most knavish attempts in the whole speech, to take advantage of the jury, was exhibited in his description of the operation. How different from the clear, perspicuous, and candid narrative of Sir James Scarlett. You are told, says Wakley, that the stone was shelved above the pubes and behind the pubes; but, continued he, (placing a pelvis in the position in which it is during the operation,) a stone cannot be lodged above the pubes, because, you see, the pubes is above the bladder! This was, indeed, calculated to confuse men unaccustomed to the subject, and who did not probably reflect that above and below are merely relative terms, which must change with every change of position, and that it was not meant that the stone was between the pubes and external integuments, which, in the position for lithotomy, would be the literal meaning of above the pubes, but that it was in such a situation as, in the ordinary position of the body, was above the pubes. But Wakley assured the jury that it was impossible for any stone to be above the pubes, for there was a tendon to prevent it which no force could overcome; and he affected to ridicule the idea of there being anything unusual, any extraordinary shelf behind the pubes, in which the stone could have been lodged. "Had there been a shelf here," said he,—"had there been a crooked passage—had there been a cavity, or any place for the deposition of the stone, do you suppose that shelf would not have been produced? Had there been any thing particular in the formation of the pubes, would they not have cut out the man's bone as well as the bladder?" It is probably impossible for any but medical men to appreciate fully the impudent imposition—the fraud of this statement,—this knavish artifice to mislead the jury. No attempt was made in any part of Mr. Cooper's case to show that there was such malformation, or that the stone was in the position which Mr. Wakley demonstrated it could not occupy—thus answering an argument which had never been advanced.
The following is a good specimen of sophistry and stupidity. Finding it proved that there was no opening between the bladder and rectum, Wakley wanted to make out that he never had said otherwise, having stated the cellular membrane to be lacerable, and therefore not lacerated. And then, forgetting the nature of his argument, immediately added, "remember this; the gorget is not as wide as the finger, and that it is not an uncommon thing for an unskilful operator to drive the gorget in between the bladder and rectum." Thus insinuating what had been proved to be false, and what he had just argued, from the words of the libel, he could not have meant.
Coarse in language.—This scarcely requires illustration. But as specimens, on the present occasion, of vulgar slang and miserable attempts at wit, we may mention his talking of "hole and corner" proceedings,—his comparing Sir James Scarlett to sour milk, and which happy thought he has, in hand-bills pasted about the town, converted into "Knight and Professor of Sour Milk,"—his explanation of the term bat as applied to surgeons, "because they live in the dark, they suckle their young, and live in creaks and crevices of old walls, hospitals, and dungeons, thriving and fattening on their own species,"—his address to the "gang" of hospital surgeons, whom he represented as wading "through blood up to the neck,"—and lastly, his exclamations, several times repeated, perhaps with prophetic phrenzy, that he "would die in a dungeon and expire in a ditch."
Diabolical in tendency.—The general tendency of Wakley's writings, and especially of his address to the Jury on this occasion, so far as such ravings can have any influence, is to sow distrust between men in every class of society and their medical attendants; to poison the sources of public charity, and arrest the hand of benevolence; to contract the relief afforded to human suffering, leading the poor and uninformed to suppose themselves the objects of cruel and wanton experiment, thus encouraging them rather to suffer disease to run its course than seek relief in such abodes of blood and horror as he most falsely represents our public hospitals to be.
One of the first ebullitions of this demoniacal effort consisted in representing to the Jury, which he did in two different parts of his address, that the patient had been kept bound during the operation, as if some unusual degree of coercion had been employed. "Yet, in opposition to the patient's cries—in opposition to his repeated entreaties to be unbound, still the operator kept him upon the table."—"Gentlemen," continued he, "I should like to know upon what principle it was that the man was kept bound upon the table when he implored to be loosened. Was he not a free agent?" And then he goes on to put into Mr. Cooper's mouth not only words, but a sentiment he never uttered.—"No, no, (says the operator,) my reputation is concerned. You were brought here to have the stone extracted, and extracted it shall and must be—if you were to die upon the table." Unless Wakley was intoxicated we cannot in any other manner account for an argument at once so absurd, so unprofessional, and so malignant. It evidently excited no feeling but that of disgust in the minds either of the Judge or the Jury.
The next paragraph to which we shall allude is a masterpiece of hypocrisy—"Let me ask you (said he) what you have heard respecting the miseries of the individual on whom the operation was performed? Not one word has escaped the lips of the counsel on that subject—not one word from the mouth of one of the witnesses. No, gentlemen, they are hospital surgeons themselves, and they know too well what the practices of our hospitals are, and the sufferings patients are in the habit of enduring at their hands, to feel for this man, or for any other man placed in a similar situation!" Canting hypocrite! this from the man who in the very case before us published his account of the patient's sufferings in the form of a drama, mingled with low and scurrilous gibes. Mark also the following—"Give such a verdict as shall satisfy the poor—as will shew that men are not to go into offices of this sort where the poor are to be killed, and that they shall not be at liberty to wade and ride through blood up to their necks to eminence in their profession. Ah! gentlemen, give such a verdict as shall satisfy the poor!"
There is in the various paragraphs we have quoted, more deep-rooted malice—more abandoned violation of the truth—more hypocrisy—and more open outrage of common sense, decency, and feeling, than we ever remember to have met with, even in the pages of the Lancet. It is now quite obvious that Wakley, alarmed at the change which has taken place in the estimation of his work within the last few months, finds it necessary to adopt a new system; he therefore throws off the mask, and openly declares himself the champion of the ignorant and illiterate[22]—conjuring up to their imaginations evils which do not exist—denouncing the medical profession as one of blood and murder—medical men as "thriving and fattening on their fellow-creatures"—and calling upon the "humane contributors to our hospitals and infirmaries" to support him.
Why really now, if the times of political turbulence were to return, and radical reform again to come into vogue, Cobbett and Hunt would have a most valuable coadjutor; but as it is, we almost think the sphere he has chosen is too limited for such a genius. Humbug, to be successful, ought not to be very open to detection; alleged abuses ought not to be of a kind which every man can satisfy himself are entirely without foundation; and he who professes disinterested motives ought not to begin by raising a subscription for himself. We offer these few hints to Wakley, in hopes they may be of use to him in his new career; above all, we advise him to be sparing in protestations: there are some already who look upon his sincerity with a suspicious eye; for although it is no doubt true, that he would "rather die in a dungeon, and expire in a ditch," than injure any man, yet somehow an idea has got abroad, that his constant habits of lying and slandering are not quite in keeping with these assertions. Nay, we have heard of some even of the "humane contributors" to our charitable institutions, who have been so unreasonable as to disbelieve all Wakley's stories about the cannibalism of hospital surgeons, and to look upon the whole system of the Lancet as one of knavery and imposition.