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    float amongst the medical prpfessors and students at St . Bartholomew Hospital / 1 on 1 be Subject to which W . W . adverts , further than that subject in Mit have formed a topic of conversation there , as it did at all the other hospitals : —2 . That no lectures were delivered at that Hospital on the

    " Origin of the Vital Principle , " and , consequently , that "the pupils of each lecturer" did not " enlist under the banners of their master" with any hostile

    " acrimonious" or spirit : — 3 . That Mr . Lawrence is not now , and never lias been , a " lecturer" at Bartholomew Hospital , and , consequently , delivered no * Physiological Lectures ' there , which your readers

    may consult : —4 . That neither did Mr . Abernethy deliver any Physiological Lectures there , which are printed and open to public inspection : And 5 , that the «* governors of the charitable Jnsiitution , to which both gentlemen are surgeons , " did not , for any cause whatever , " suspend Mr .

    Lawrence from two of his appointments / 1 The plain history of the case which W . W . has so unaccountably

    mistaken and misrepresented , is briefly this : In the year 1814 , Mr . Abernethy was appointed Professor of Anatomy and Surgery to the College of Surgeons , in Lincoln ' s Inn Fields . In the Lectures which , under this

    appointment , he delivered at the Col-% < % in that and the following years , lie took occasion to state and vindicate Mr . Hunter ' s opinions respecting * Me and diseases . ' * The two Introductory Lectures of the first course , and a part of the Introductory

    Lee-* ure of the second , lie afterwards published . In 1816 , Mr . Lawrence , who is one of the assistant surgeons of Bartholomew Hospital , was chosen to succeed Mr . Astley Cooper as the other Professor of Anatomy and Surto the Col

    j ^ ry lege , and that year flowed his predecessor in delivering ¦ co urse of Lectures on Comparative Anato my . In these lectures Mr . Lawrence controverted and ridiculed br « rt , tenan Uieory oflife , which his Ulcr lecturer had been advocating .

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    In the year following , Mr . Abernethy delivered a course of " Physiological Lectures , exhibiting a general view of Mr . Hunter ' s Physiology , " &c , in which lie supported the opinions hd had before maintained , and ex *

    pressed his disapprobation of the systems of the French Physiologists . These are the Lectures , I presume , to which your Correspondent means to refer your readers . Mr . Laurence , the next year , ( 1818 , ) delivered another course , in which he again took

    up the subject , and stood forward as the champion of the French schoo l * These are the lectures . which gave so much public offence , and which he suppressed after their publication . Of

    these lectures the only public notice , as far as 1 know , taken by Mr . Abernethy , is contained in a temperate Postscript to his . •' Hunlerian Oration , " which was delivered in February last , and published shortly after .

    In order to form a correct judgment of the merits of the controversy , it is necessary to peruse the whole of these publications , and to them 1 beg to refer your Correspondent himself . If

    after the perusal of them he should Mill think that the professors have ic disgraced * ' themselves by the management and termination of it , he must be left to the enjoyment of his

    opinion . One word on another part of his communication . Mr . Lawrence held the appointment of surgeon to Bride- * well , and also to a certain institution for healing the maladies of the mind , latelv removed from Moorfields to the

    neighbourhood of St . George ' s Fields . It is true , that the governors of the latter did take alarm at his metaphysical heresy , and , as if infected by the atmosphere they breathed , proceeded

    to suspend him from his office , judging , no doubt , that orthodoxy of opinion was essential to practical skill in the cure of the disorders immediately under their charge . To their judgment Mr . Lawrence sacrificed ; his book , and made his peace by its suppression . * # ? # *

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    Correct Statement of Medical Dispute on the Origin of Vitality , 751

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1819, page 751, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1779/page/35/